UNIX. > CALIF. LIBRARY, LOS ANGELES 



The 

INHERITANCE 




"'And you thought I saw him kiss you, too, I suppose?'" 

[Page 326] 



The 
INHERITANCE 



BY 



JOSEPHINE DASKAM BACON 

AUTHOR OF 

"THE MADNESS OF PHILIP," "MARGARITA'S SOUL," 
"THE MEMOIRS OF A BABY," ETC. 




ILLUSTRATED 



NEW YORK AND LONDON 
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 

1912 



COPYHJGHT, IQI2, BY 

JOSEPHINE DASKAM BACON 



Published August, 191 a 



Printed in the United States of America 



TO B. J. D. 

IN MEMORIAM 

The sunbeams flash across the pool, 

The August trees lean toward the blue, 

Below the bridge glide minnows cool, 

The urchins hail you, free from school 

But where (with rod and reel) are you? 

Down the still air the red leaves sail, 

The good sun bakes the orchards through, 

The katydid begins her wail, 
For you the old wood spreads her trail 

But where (with dog and gun) are you? 

The fire roars up the chimney wall, 

The plates are filled, the songs are new, 

The boys and girls, your subjects all, 
For you still wait, for you still call 

But where (with pipe and glass) are you? 

J. D. B. 

July, 1912. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. IN WHICH I INTRODUCE MYSELF THE 

HERO i 

II. IN WHICH I Go A-CHARING, FOR THE FIRST 

AND LAST TIME 13 

III. IN WHICH I DISCOVER AMERICA ... 19 

IV. IN WHICH I LOOK ABOUT ME ... 27 

V. IN WHICH I INTRODUCE THE READER TO 

CHRISSY 38 

VI. IN WHICH I TAKE You TO A CHRISTENING 

PARTY 55 

VII. IN WHICH I BEGIN MY EDUCATION . . 65 

VIII. IN WHICH You MAY RENEW YOUR AC- 
QUAINTANCE WITH CHRISSY . . - . 82 

IX. IN WHICH I GROW UP 98 

X. IN WHICH WE BEGIN TO LEAVE THE NEST . 123 

XI. IN WHICH I Go TO FIND MY INHERITANCE 134 

XII. IN WHICH I SEE LIFE 144 

XIII. IN WHICH I GLIMPSE MY INHERITANCE . 170 

XIV. IN WHICH I TASTE OF STOLEN WATERS . 188 

XV. IN WHICH I RENOUNCE MY INHERITANCE . 206 

XVI. IN WHICH WE SETTLE DOWN . . . 227 

XVII. IN WHICH BERT PAYS His SCORE . . . 236 

vii 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

XVIII. IN WHICH WE RIDE TO MEET TROUBLE . 244 

XIX. IN WHICH THE DOCTOR GIVES UP DRIVING 

FOR SOME TIME 263 

XX. IN WHICH I BREAK THE NEWS TO CHRIS- 

SY 267 

XXL IN WHICH WE MANAGE, SOMEHOW . . 277 

XXIL IN WHICH THINGS TAKE A TURN . . 294 

XXIII. IN WHICH You MAY OR MAY NOT BELIEVE. 301 

XXIV. IN WHICH WE TAKE OUR EASE . . .310 

XXV. IN WHICH MY EYES ARE OPENED . . 323 

XXVI. IN WHICH WE Go HONEY-MOONING . . 332 

XXVII. IN WHICH I COME INTO MY INHERITANCE . 338 



Vlll 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

FACING 
PAGE 

" 'And you thought I saw him kiss you, too, I suppose ? ' " 

Frontispiece 

" ' Will he cure her out of the black bottle, Nana ? ' " . . . 46 
"'I hope you feel that we've done our best by you.'" . . 140 
"The wagon swayed and lurched." 256 



IX 



THE INHERITANCE 

A ROMANCE OF THE FAMILY 

CHAPTER I 
In Which I Introduce Myself the Hero 

THE first words that I remember in my life were 
French. I can dimly see a great blue blur, which 
I now know to have been the ocean ; there was 
a comforting, sun-warmed substance under me, yielding, 
yet hard, slipping through the fingers, yet susceptible of 
manipulation, which I believe now to have been sand; 
there were intermittent articles, self-propelled, crossing 
my field of vision, some dark and bifurcated, some float- 
ing and many-coloured, which I infer to have been the 
garments of perambulating adults with heads altogether 
out of my view. One of these coloured, billowy articles 
stopped and did not go sailing by my tiny outlook, but 
presently lowered itself till a face neared my level. Then 
I was aware of a sweet odour like flowers but there were 
no flowers about and a row of flashing white teeth: 
there were shiny eyes somewhere above the teeth, but I 
don't remember any cheeks or nose or hair. (Subsequent 
studies in anthropology, however, have convinced me that 
there must have been all three of these usual features of 
humanity.) 



THE INHERITANCE 

"Quel ange d' enfant!" cried a voice, and I must have 
understood, for I distinctly recall my reply. 

"Je 'sommes pas ange! J 'som' bebe!" I said with dig- 
nity, and the teeth and eyes flashed, again and again the 
high laugh sounded, with other laughs, deeper, coming 
from far above. Even so, I suppose, Jove's thunderous 
peals awed and irritated the helpless underlings in ancient 
days. 

I made a brief visit to Normandy about twenty years 
later (ah, what a visit!), and something in the air, the 
shape of the white beaches, the glint of the sun on the 
sails, struck home to me so quaintly, so conformably, that 
I have never had a doubt since that my first consciousness 
awakened there, though Nana could not or would not con- 
firm this intuition, reiterating that she had no idea what 
part of the French country we were in, but that the tea 
was nasty enough, no matter where it was! We must 
have been there for some months, for when I first heard 
French spoken again, nine or ten years afterward, it had 
a perfectly familiar ring, though I couldn't, of course, 
understand it. But I had the feeling that I should under- 
stand, presently, if it went on long enough, and Bert told 
me later that my lips moved unconsciously and that I 
tried to follow the silly gabble and looked like a donkey. 

I can see the brown, stained schoolroom now, the dusty 
blackboards, the hacked forms, the enticing boughs wav- 
ing out of window, and the shuffling, inattentive class. 
One ray of sunlight struck the bald, nervous head of the 
little French teacher and shone on the scanty greyish 
locks carefully arranged over the ears. He was slightly 
asthmatic, and when he wheezed chirpily : 

"Maintenant, messieurs, nous commengons a parler 
Francois, heinf" everybody laughed, promptly and loudly, 
after the tactful, encouraging fashion of early boyhood. 

2 



I INTRODUCE MYSELF THE HERO 

Everybody but me, that is. I stared and grew hot and 
stared harder, and the poor little man, who had supposed 
the derisive mirth of the others to be an enthusiastic and 
spontaneous tribute to the beauty of his native tongue, 
mistook my excited interest for contempt, and glaring 
fiercely at me, reproved my bad manners and became in- 
stantly possessed of a cordial dislike of me. In view of 
such possibilities of error at the time of the erection of the 
famous Tower of Babel, I can hardly wonder at the in- 
cipience and persistence of the subsequent race-feuds; 
for I, being on the whole a favourite with my teachers, 
since I was quick, well mannered (compared with Ameri- 
can boys) and apt at fitting together the bits of informa- 
tion I had picked up from the reading of miscellaneous 
fiction, was undoubtedly a little spoiled and accustomed 
to finding my presence in the class-room appreciated, and 
M. Merot's obvious dislike of me produced a not unnat- 
ural enmity which required more than a school term to 
smooth over. 

But we straightened it all out, ultimately, and before 
another year he had solemnly presented me with an auto- 
graphed copy of his "Grammar and Conversation Book 
for Beginners in the French Language with Compendious 
Verb-forms Attached," and "Hommages de 1'auteur" in 
a beautiful pointed hand on the title page. To this day 
(if he is alive, which isn't likely, as he was frightfully 
bilious and continually going into rages directly after his 
meals) I haven't the remotest doubt that he regards me 
as a cynical young savage, tamed and refined, in spite of 
myself, by the ameliorating influences of his society. 

But to return to my reminiscences : the boat is the next 
thing I can be sure of, and a tremendous boat it seemed 
to me. We must have had a rough passage, for I believe 
children are not commonly afflicted with mat de mer, not 

3 



THE INHERITANCE 

deeply so, at any rate. This must have been the opinion 
of the fussy little Frenchman who told Nana as she sup- 
ported me tenderly and urged me to "get it over and be 
done with it," not to fdcher herself unnecessarily, since 
"les enfants ne sont jamais malades, madame." At this 
I stared sadly at him, and remarked succinctly : 

"Mais-2-oui, monsieur, je le suis!" and promptly vin- 
dicated my judgment, to his disgust and horror for I 
was much too near him. I have never been a good sailor. 

The next thing that I remember may lead to a valu- 
able psychological theory as to when the influences of cos- 
tume begin to make themselves felt upon the infantile 
character, for it is my gradual but unmistakable descent, 
sartorially speaking, that has most deeply impressed me. 
I distinctly recall a blue velvet suit with wide white cuffs 
and a black cap like a Cossack's, with a sort of abbre- 
viated plume stuck into it, also shiny boots with tassels 
on the top. I had plenty of pocket-handkerchiefs, too, for 
I remember that I was accustomed to blow my nose, fre- 
quently, and with somewhat of a flourish, moreover, for 
it was a recent accomplishment, and I was very proud of 
it. I had the neatest possible pinafores, too, for playing 
about of mornings, with deep, useful pockets and a kind 
of ornamentation upon the chest for which I had at that 
period, naturally, no name, but by the effect of which I 
must have been impressed, because, when I saw a pina- 
fore like it on a burly peasant in a hunting print in the 
office, years afterward, and asked Chrissy what such a 
garment was called, and she told me it was a smock- 
frock, I answered : 

"That's what I wore when we lived in London." 

"Yes, the English children wear them, but we don't in 
the States," she instructed me, and I thought it was a 
pity, for I admired them. 



I INTRODUCE MYSELF THE HERO 

"When I have children they shall wear them," I re- 
marked, and she laughed at me. 

"Boys don't say, 'when I have children/ " she said ; 
"girls say that." 

"But men do have children," I persisted; "the doctor 
has children, four of them, hasn't he ?" 

She looked puzzled, and her eyebrows touched and 
made a straight dark line across her face. 

"Y-yes," she said, "that's true. He has. I must think 
about that." 

She thought, and I waited respectfully for her, for I 
revered her judgment greatly. 

"And there isn't any mother there, only Aunt Addie," 
she added. "I don't believe there was, ever. But, all the 
same, Hugh, I'm sure it's the mothers that have them 
mostly." 

She never changed much, bless her! I never met a 
woman with her capacity for altering an opinion, once 
formed on a practical basis, when new evidence, appar- 
ently of value, entered the question. She included it, in 
the whole case, like a man. I don't mean that she af- 
fected thus to include it, out of policy, or to humour her 
antagonist, but that she did include it. And I don't mean 
that the evidence was always of the character just de- 
scribed ! 

Well, well, I had got to London, I believe, London, 
and our greatly increasing poverty there for, of course, 
that is what the poor clothes must have meant. I was 
growing rapidly, I suppose, for the last I remember of 
the blue velvet suit, it was away above my knees, and I 
blew my nose on anything handy, and the Cossack bonnet 
I wore mostly around my neck by the strings, it was so 
much too small. But Nana always made me carry it, at- 
tached, at least, to my person. It was her emblem of gen- 

5 



THE INHERITANCE 

tility, her symbol of my ideal in spite of my actual ap- 
pearance. 

"I'll not have you about bareheaded like that horrid 
rough street lot," she told me. "Remember you're a gen- 
tleman, deary, and above such as them. Don't pay no 
heed to their naughty talk it's not for such as you. 
You'll be riding through them in your carriage, some 
day." 

At which I bridled and looked haughty and agreed 
with her though heaven knows it was no neighbourhood 
to tempt the possessor of a carriage to excursions ! 

It was, in fact, an extremely dirty and disagreeable 
neighbourhood, and whether it looked or smelled or 
sounded most shocking would have been hard to say. We 
had come into it (and down to it) rather hastily! We 
were always growing a little dirtier and more disagree- 
able. At one period we had boasted some geraniums in 
the window and sat at a table with napkins, which Nana 
pinned round my neck, herself, somewhat obtrusively, 
with an eye on the slavey that waited on us. 

"Please to tell the young person that brings in the tray 
that I prefer to attend to the young gentleman myself, 
Mrs. Fibbs," she told the keeper of the lodging house, 
and Mrs. Fibbs said ingratiatingly: 

"Yes, certainly, by all means, Mrs. False, and a hand- 
some young gentleman, too, and a great credit to you, 
that he is ! I will say, as I tell Fibbs frequent, his parents 
should be forever grateful to you for the beautiful man- 
ners you've kep' him to, and very wise, too, considering 
he'll soon meet them again, I suppose?" 

"I suppose so," said Nana smoothly, and Mrs. Fibbs 
tossed her head disgustedly and left. 

At that time Nana wore neat black, with white cuffs 
and collar and a big cameo brooch, with a hunter pointing 

6 



I INTRODUCE MYSELF THE HERO 

a gun (for some mysterious reason) toward a dog at his 
feet, engraved on it. Her hands were quite soft and she 
combed my hair twice a day, and we walked in a charm- 
ing park where there was a pond, and I played with the 
children in my velvet suit and she sat on a bench with 
some small sewing and chatted with the other nurses. I 
know she was much respected among them. I have heard 
more than one ask for her opinion as to eruptions on the 
back or repeated and inexplicable attacks of hiccough or 
an incurable tendency to biting if annoyed or crossed in 
any way. 

Once as I was floating some sticks across the pond in 
company with a charming little creature in a pink hood 
edged with white fur, a very beautiful lady with a sad 
face (children always notice sadness in a face) and a 
black, black veil that hung down over her dress came and 
sat down on the bench near Nana and, after a few mo- 
ments, put a small black glove on her knee. 

"I beg your pardon, nurse," she said in a sweet, cry- 
ing sort of voice (as I called it in my mind), "but may I 
ask you if you have had the care of that little fellow for 
long?" 

Nana jumped and stared at the lady, but collected her- 
self and said rather coldly, I thought, for such a pretty 
lady: 

"Yes, madam, I've taken care of him from an infant." 

"Ah . . . then you are probably much attached to 
him, and would not care to consider a change?" 

Nana looked much relieved and unbent distinctly, at 
which I was pleased. 

"Why, thank you, Ma'am, I'm afraid not," she said, 
with a respectful pity for the black veil. 

"I am anxious to find a nurse for my little boy I am 
taking him abroad, perhaps to India . . . my plans 
2 7 



THE INHERITANCE 

are unsettled," and she too looked at her veil and her 
lovely eyes filled with tears. 

"I'm sure, ma'am," Nana said kindly. 

"I have been watching you with your little charge, and 
I liked your manner so much. I took a great fancy 
. . . a good nurse would be worth a great deal to me 
a great deal." 

"You're very kind, ma'am, but I'm quite suited. I 
wouldn't think of leaving my present place," said Nana 
decidedly, and the lady got up and gave Nana something 
and moved off to where a little fellow of my own age in 
black ribbons was playing with a footman in mourning 
livery. 

"Well, well, it's you for luck, Mrs. False, dear," said 
Pink-hood's nurse discontentedly, "that was Lady 
(I missed the name), and it'd mean a place for life, I'll 
lay my new bonnet !" 

"Indeed," Nana returned with composure; "I'm sorry 
for the poor young widow, then." 

"You must have a rare berth of your own," the other 
grumbled, but respectfully. 

"I'm satisfied with it, for one," said Nana, and, putting 
away her sewing, called me to come home, as she always 
did when anyone pressed her in the least. 

Pink-hood's nurse would have been surprised had she 
followed us to our unpretentious lodgings, but surprise 
would have inadequately expressed her feelings, I am 
sure, could she have watched the stages of our descent 
from the napkin-geranium home, which gradually as- 
sumed the proportions of a luxurious palace in my mem- 
ory ; and by the time we had reached the dingy, smelling 
court I remember best, because we stopped there longest, 
she would have long since dismissed us from her genteel 
consideration. 

8 



I INTRODUCE MYSELF THE HERO 

By that time we were often hungry. It was long be- 
fore I suffered, for Nana assured me she was not hungry 
these days, not to say hungry, that is, and if I didn't eat 
the victuals they'd go begging. I often wished they 
would go begging, for they were not very palatable vic- 
tuals, to tell the truth. In the beginning of the scarcity, 
though bread and tea with an occasional egg were all 
that Nana seemed to care for, there was always a chop 
for my dinner with a baked potato, and nearly always an 
apple for dessert. By and by the apple ceased to be forth- 
coming, and after that the chop appeared at rare inter- 
vals, and finally ceased, too, until second-day loaves and 
skim-milk were all that could with any surety be counted 
on, and my diet was practically the same as hers. It was 
the same with our clothes. At first, though Nana's collar 
and cuffs slipped away from her neat black dress and 
her shoes grew shapeless and broken and her old mantle 
got spoiled with the rain, I went brave in morning pina- 
fore and afternoon velvet, and the plume in the Cossack 
hat was curled magnificently over the tea-kettle; but 
little by little these small niceties relaxed, the velvet 
suit became frankly anachronistic, the pinafores wore 
out, my shoes lacked not only tassels (at which I 
complained), but soles and uppers (which didn't 
trouble me so much) and before long I was as poorly 
dressed as she. 

What Nana did I don't know, but I suppose she must 
have gone out charing, like most of the women in the 
neighbourhood. She left early and got back at dark, and 
I spent the day with Hannerellen, the minder. 

"What's a minder?" I asked Nana disconsolately when 
first she informed me of my fate. 

"A girl that minds, o' course, deary, and Hannerel- 
len's a good, kind girl trust me to see to that before I'd 

9 



THE INHERITANCE 

put my own boy with her ; some o' them minders is awful 
to the children," she assured me. 

Hannerellen was kind. I suppose her name to have 
been Hannah Ellen, but it is a supposition merely, and I 
offer it as such. I was the only boy among her charges, 
of whom there were five, and entered her peripatetic 
school at the regular rate of sixpence a day. It was 
high, but Hannerellen was worth it, and knew her worth. 
Her terms included surveillance from six to six, Sun- 
days excepted (Saturdays a half holiday for the parent 
if wished, but nothing deducted) ; the administration of 
lunch (provided by parent) and all required drinks of 
water (provided by the City) ; noses wiped carefully and 
any other personal attentions as required; street cross- 
ings guaranteed and all addresses on a slip of paper in 
the bosom of her frock, in case of accident. I was strong 
and cautious, and in consideration of admitted assistance 
at the crossings and such good manners that I was easy 
to manage and not quarrelsome, having always obeyed 
Nana implicitly and being utterly ignorant of the bad 
words Hannerellen so deplored in her clientele, my rate 
was reduced to fivepence, and I became a sort of lieu- 
tenant to the party and always took my drink of water 
last. 

Hannerellen grew very fond of me and I of her. She 
confided her ambitions to me (one of them was to be- 
come a school teacher and the other to taste roast chicken 
and currant jelly), and I told her about the napkin-and- 
geranium palace, where I had tasted both, when the 
velvet coat came to my ankles. 

"My ! No" wonder you ain't like the others," she would 
say, "you're a gentleman, Master Hugh, it's easy seen." 

"Oh, yes, I'm a gentleman," I would answer simply. 
"I'll be riding in my carriage some day." 

10 



I INTRODUCE MYSELF THE HERO 

I must have been about five. . . . 

Then came the day when Nana decided to take me 
with her, charing, and save the fivepence. 

"I could go a bit say, part way in a bus, then, my 
dear," she told Hannerellen, "and get him a mug o' milk 
with the rest and leave him in the airey most always the 
cook'd keep an eye on him, and he's sensible and quiet. 
And we could walk home. But I get sort o' faint like, 
walkin' so much, to tell you the truth. I'm not used to 
it." 

"I know that, Mrs. False. But I fair hate to think o' 
losin' Hughie. Maybe I could take 'im for thruppence, 
and he does a good bit o' mindin', anyways." 

I think I determined then never to forget Hannerellen. 

"Master Hugh," said Nana with a meaning glance at 
my poor little minder, "Master Hugh is much obliged to 
you, Hannerellen, but it's best as I've planned, and will 
you have a bit o' supper with us, since you're here?" 

I stared at this, frankly, for I had made up my baby's 
mind, rather drearily, to skim-milk and second-day bun, 
and I was unprepared for the contents of Nana's news- 
paper. She warmed a bit of cooked steak for me, served 
the abashed Hannerellen with half of a jam tart, rather 
crushed, and a buttered roll, and nibbled at a bit of the 
stale bun herself, saying lightly that she had dined late 
and was not hungry. I thank God that I am utterly un- 
able to remember the dark rings that I now know lay 
under her eyes nor the gauntness of her cheek-bones nor 
the ring of her cough. Her boots were nearly gone. 

And here is a wonderful thing. Hannerellen was fully 
thirteen and shrewd, with the terrible shrewdness of the 
London tenement child. She knew, if she had stopped to 
think, that Nana was weak and ill with overwork and 
worry and hunger; she must have realised that there 

ii 



THE INHERITANCE 

was something extremely odd, to say the least, in the 
presence in such a place of a young gentleman who con- 
templated driving in his carriage in the near future ; she 
had never, I am sure, so much as heard my surname. 

And yet, so potent is a strong will, so enormous the 
force of a determined personality, that she and all that 
overworked, underfed little world we lived in implicitly 
accepted us at our face value, never dreamed that we 
were doing other than we chose, and would never have 
presumed to suggest to Nana that she needed her own 
share of those broken meats in a newspaper, the un- 
doubted gift of a compassionate servant. And people 
used to doubt the claims of hypnotism ! 



CHAPTER II 

In Which I go a-Charing, for the First and 
Last Time 

I REMEMBER so well that next morning, a "London 
regular" as to weather, all choking, yellow, wet fog. 
Nana coughed and strangled in it, and I clung to 
her cold, roughened hand, snivelling mournfully, for I 
missed Hannerellen, and this woke Nana's jealousy, poor 
woman, so that she had boxed my ears which certainly 
hadn't proved efficacious as far as the snivelling was con- 
cerned. I had had a most unsatisfactory breakfast, and 
had been disturbed in the night by Nana's crying when 
she thought I was asleep; she explained afterward that 
she had the toothache. I lagged along, whining out my 
small discomforts, and Nana coughed from time to time 
and said nothing; she was sorry for the ear-boxing, I 
knew. 

At last we reached our objective point and were con- 
fronted with an enormous van blocking the way. To 
Nana's surprised inquiries a harassed cook made short 
answers. 

"These is all for storage, missis sails for the States day 
after to-morrow. She don't require you any more. Yes, 
it was a bit suddent like, but that's the way in this world." 

Nana turned silently away, but the cook stopped her. 

"Oh! Mrs. False, I was to tell you from number 
thirty-eight that there'd be no call there for anything 
further. The gentleman's went bankrupt, and they're go- 

13 



THE INHERITANCE 

ing into lodgings for the present. 'Twas the parlour 
maid ran out on a message and asked me to tell you and 
save you the trouble." 

Nana must have looked badly, for even that busy cook 
relented a little from her brisk fatalism. 

"Step in and have a bit o' something, won't you?" she 
asked kindly ; "it's as much as my place to stop, for she's 
as flighty as can be with the moving and all, but you and 
the young one could rest. It's a bad season to lose two 
families at once, I know had you any others ?" 

"No," said Nana dully, "I hadn't any others. Thank 
you just as much, though. I don't think we'll stop. 
Come along, deary." 

And we trudged off into the fog again. 

It was too much for me. I burst into loud crying and 
refused to be comforted. 

"I'm so cold," I wailed, "and I'm so hungry, Nana! 
I can't walk all that way! You said I might sit 
down . . ." 

She stopped dead and stared at me curiously, imper- 
sonally. There was a look in her I'd never seen before, 
and it struck a frost into even my baby blood, so despair- 
ing, so bitter it was. 

"I'll be good, I'll be good," I cried hastily, "I'm not so 
very tired, truly, Nana ! I won't cry any more." 

"Poor lambie," she muttered in a low, miserable voice, 
"a fine Nana I've been to you, after all starvin' and 
chillin' you to get you your rights ! Much good they'd 
do you in your coffin ! You shan't be hungry any more, 
lambie your Nana'll see to that. Stand still by me a 
minute," and she fumbled in the bosom of her soiled, 
frayed black gown and drew out a folded envelope. From 
it she took a small card and to my amazement a couple 
of shillings. Still with that curious, miserable gaze fas- 

14 



I GO A-CHARING 

tened on me, as if her eyes had been opened suddenly 
and she had never till then realised what a starving, shiv- 
ering little object I was, she signalled a drifting hansom 
and handed the driver the card, the money exhibited 
plainly in her hand. 

"Drive to that, please," she said and, taking me on her 
lap in the cab, burst into tears on my shoulder. 

I am afraid I was too much excited and pleased with 
the drive to extend her much sympathy. Indeed I ob- 
jected violently to getting out and was only comforted 
by a kind young man who sat in a little room with a 
green baize writing table and books all over the walls, 
and amused me very pleasantly by wrapping his hand in 
his handkerchief and intoning lugubriously : 

"Father, oh, father, I've come to confess 
Yes, child, yes." 

I was hugely delighted with this pantomime and forgot 
my empty stomach and my wet feet completely, under the 
sovereign spell of Art the beneficent. So shall you see 
the children skipping about some dingy square, when the 
cracked hand-organ whines out Non ti scordar, and even 
the weary grinder smiles at them and forgets the hunger 
at home and the heavy winter lurking always ahead for 
the poor. I often think of this when Aunt Addie won- 
ders testily why the travelling show man pockets the 
street cleaner's pennies, when there is the Provident Fund 
all ready for their pitiful coppers and a Burial Company 
round the corner ; and it takes me back in a whiff to that 
green-baize, calf-bound room, and the freckled young 
man that had pity on a chilblained, frightened baby and 
charmed away its troubles for five minutes. For it could 
not have been more than that before Nana came out of 

15 



THE INHERITANCE 

an inner, larger room, her face flushed now and her 
eyes hard and bright, with a dimly seen little, thin gen- 
tleman behind her. 

"Much wiser, much wiser, my good woman," he was 
saying in a dry, clicking voice, "and you may depend 
upon it, I shall remit regularly to any address you may 
send. Is this the boy ?" 

"Yes. Come, deary," and she seized my hand her 
own was hot. 

"No other course could have been of such value to 
him. He will live to thank you for it yet," said the dry 
voice. I could hardly lift my eyes from the mysterious 
handkerchief that still wrapped the freckled fist of the 
kind young man. 

"To thank me for being kept out of his own?" she 
cried sharply. 

"Tut, tut ! This is no spirit, Mrs. False no spirit to 
show. Do you undertake to prove anything to be his 
own? If so, bring your case immediately to me, and 
even now I will hand you back your signature ! Shall I ?" 

"No, no," she muttered, "I see it's no use. I only 
tried to help him. . . ." 

"Exactly. Good afternoon, then," and I saw a pair of 
pepper-and-salt legs vanish behind the door. 

Nana cried no more, then, nor at any time after that 
I ever knew, though now I believe that those nights when 
she paced the floor, her hands pressed to her head, she 
had no more toothache than I had. 

"I'm all you've got now, lambie," she said as we passed 
out into the street, and gave me a strangling hug in the 
doorway, but as I had never had anything or anybody 
else, to my knowledge, this did not trouble me, and even 
if it had, subsequent events would have dispelled the 
trouble. 

16 



I GO A-CHARING 

For we went home, as nearly as we could, in a 'bus, and 
stopped on the way and bought a mutton-pie, hot, with 
potatoes and gravy, and a great fresh loaf, and a pot of 
new butter, and a boiled pudding in a bag, and a quart 
of real milk with cream on the top; and when we got 
home, Hannerellen, who had "dropped around" to hear 
how I had spent the day, was despatched for coals and 
a big pot of porter, frothing on the top, and joined us 
at Nana's request in a hearty farewell supper "for we're 
moving out, to-morrow," Nana informed her briefly. The 
porter was warmed over the fire and I had some "the 
child must be fattened and stren'thened," said Nana and 
a delicious full-fed drowsiness came over me, and I slept 
like a top. I drowsed all the next day and she fed me 
at intervals (I must have been pretty far gone with cold 
and hunger, when warmth and food stupefied me so) and 
between these pleasant intervals I was dimly conscious 
of Nana bent over her sewing, and of Hannerellen fever- 
ishly helping her. I slept another night and drowsed an- 
other day, still with those pleasant intervals of beef 
and boiled bread and milk and warm porter, and still 
the lamp burned late and still Nana sewed and Hanner- 
ellen helped her. Then one morning I woke suddenly, 
alert and fresh with the wonderful recuperation of child- 
hood, and there was Nana, trim in a new black dress 
with white collar and cuffs and smooth hair under her 
black bonnet, and whole, new shoes. 

"Where's the man with the gun to pin your collar?" 
I inquired suddenly. 

"Bless the child !" she cried, "to think of that, now ! 
It's gone, lambie, and I can't get it again, but if you're so 
set on it, I'll try to have another. Let Nana dress you, 
now." 

And there was a fresh little suit with warm under 

17 



THE INHERITANCE 

flannels, and shiny, new boots and a neat hat with a cock- 
ade in it and gloves for my hands. And on the top 
of a new leather box, full and waiting for the strap, I 
saw a pile of small handkerchiefs for me, beyond a 
doubt. 

But there was one thing that struck me forcibly. 

"What makes my coat black, Nana?" I asked, as they 
dressed me with hasty, nervous fingers, "the velvet one 
was blue." 

"It's best for you to wear it, deary," she said briefly. 
"You may kiss Hanerellen for once, if you like, and say 
good-bye you're going on the big boat now." 

"Good-bye, Master Hughie, good-bye !" cried my faith- 
ful little minder, weeping, "I'll never forget you, never ! 
And you'll remember Hannerellen, now and again, won't 
you, for all you'll be so high, now?" 

"Indeed he will," said Nana kindly, "though not, o' 
course, as a friend, and you wouldn't expect nor wish it, 
Hannerellen, I'm sure. But little gentlemen never forgets 
those as was kind to them, and no more will he, you may 
depend. He always liked you, Hannerellen." 

"Yes, I always liked you," I assured her comfortingly, 
and with that I passed out of her life, and all that dingy 
court became as a dream to me. 



CHAPTER III 

In Which I Discover America 

OCEAN travel was a vastly different affair forty- 
five years ago, let me tell you. To begin with, 
fewer people travelled on the ocean. Those 
that did, travelled more seldom and more slowly, and 
regarded each other with deeper interest and respect as 
a more definitely selected class. Now the butcher and 
the baker "step across the Pond," as my devoted country- 
men put it, for their little holiday, and the candle-stick 
maker sends his wife and daughter to patronise hotels 
whose luxury would have amazed my lord and his lady, 
half a century ago. Any one who had told the captain 
of the "big boat" Nana pointed out to me from the trunk 
we sat on that his successors would command the serv- 
ices of electric lifts, roof gardens, gymnasiums and daily 
papers that they would, moreover, desire these unrea- 
sonable diversions during a trip of less than five days 
from New York to Fishguard would have been re- 
garded as dangerously flighty by that vastly important 
official. In a word, there was more respect for the 
Atlantic in those days. 

And is the air above us, that "blue cerulean" that be- 
longed to the poets exclusively, in the days when I read 
poetry, is that, too, doomed, and will the school teachers 
and the authoresses be sailing through it, patronizing 
Mars over the edge of a Baedeker in their summer holi- 
days, when I am seventy? 

19 



THE INHERITANCE 

Let us go back, patient reader, to Nana and me sitting 
on our new trunks, waiting to be told how and where and 
when to go. Somewhere in the bustle of luggage and 
sailors and great drays unloading and packets of mail and 
weeping relatives (for we wept more, forty-five years ago, 
on embarking upon a long voyage, and had prayers read 
over us before and after taking it, too) I got separated 
from her, and was led about by a kindly old gentleman in 
a white top-hat on a searching party for her. 

"She was in black, my boy, wasn't she?" he asked, 
after a glance at the ribbon around my neck and the 
streamers to my cap. 

"Yes, please," I quavered, and with many a cheery 
pat on the shoulder he led me at last to a lady, who sat 
crocheting in the ladies' salon, raised his hat politely, 
began : 

"Here's a little charge of yours, I think, ma'am 
and then dashed away suddenly after some of his luggage, 
waving his stick and shouting so violently at the porter 
as quite to drown the mutual remonstrances of both the 
crocheting lady and myself. For though she was cer- 
tainly dressed in deep mourning, she was not Nana. She 
was, in fact, Aunt Addie, and the old gentleman, having 
achieved this next purpose of Fate, in my regard, disap- 
peared entirely out of my life and I never laid eyes on 
him again for all I know, Fate dropped him overboard 
with a view to stopping the mouth of some special shark, 
thus blunting its appetite so that She could save the life 
of some other of the dramatis persona! 

"Have you lost your mother, little boy ?" the lady asked 
with sufficient kindness, and I whimpered: 

"No, it's Nana." 

"Oh, your nurse! Don't be frightened you'll soon 
find her. Stay here by me if you like, and she 

20 



I DISCOVER AMERICA 

will be certain to look for you here. Is your father on 
board?" 

"No, only Nana." 

"Ah, I see poor little fellow !" and she too patted my 
shoulder kindly. Knowing Aunt Addie as I do now, I feel 
quite justified in assuring the reader that to her mind my 
status was as clearly defined as though Nana had deliv- 
ered a sworn statement of it into her hands. My clothes, 
though quiet, were of the best materials ; my appearance 
must have been far from unpleasing, for I well remember 
that, in the days of the park and Pink-hood, all the little 
girls were eager to play with me and the mothers always 
complimented Nana upon my pretty ways and curly hair ; 
and finally, and most important of all, Nana's presence 
and manner were unmistakably those of that triumph of 
civilisation, the absolutely perfect English upper servant. 
She would have marked any family as correct, any estab- 
lishment as "high class." There may be some other divi- 
sion of the human race whose members possess that pre- 
cise understanding of their own self-respect and yours, 
that perfect comprehension of easy service without servil- 
ity, of sympathetic interest without hypocrisy, there may 
be, I say, possessors of these gifts and graces who are 
not of this class I have mentioned, but I never met any 
such. I have been in a position to observe both the feudal 
zeal of an old French provincial bonne and the passionate 
devotion of a darkey slave, and in each there was, I own, 
a little too much of the familiar to suit my Saxon taste. 
But any one who has encountered, on her native heath, an 
English housekeeper of the old vintage, with the shrewd 
insight of the Gallic servant, the loyal affection of the 
negro and the manners of her own mistress, will agree 
with me that no other nation can show the like. Behold 
Aunt Addie, then, touched by my black clothes, new, like 

21 



THE INHERITANCE 

her own ; predisposed in my favour by my English voice 
and ways, and completely won by Nana's respectful 
thanks on my recovery. 

"So this poor little fellow is all alone ?" she asked gra- 
ciously, when (and just because, probably) Nana started 
off with me. For Aunt Addie detested pushers-in, as 
she often said, and thought little of people who scraped 
acquaintance easily. 

"He's nobody but me, thank you, madam," Nana an- 
swered respectfully, "but I've had him from an infant 
and no one could think more of him." 

"And you are taking him to relatives in America?" 

"It's not settled where we shall go, ma'am," said Nana 
quietly. 

There was always something in Nana's reticence that 
impressed people. She was so neat and immaculate, so 
controlled, so clearly determined to say as much as she 
thought wise and no more, that every one felt reproved 
at the mere suggestion of having intruded. I have seen 
a dozen people bite their lips after some such question 
as this of Aunt Addie's and go further than they had 
intended, perhaps, in their next remark. 

"He is very fortunate in having such a faithful nurse, 
who can be trusted to take such good care of him, I'm 
sure," she said hastily. "Have you ever been in America 
before?" 

"No, madam, I'm not acquainted with the States at all." 

"You'll find things different, very different," Aunt 
Addie continued with a sigh. 

"I've not been there myself for fifteen years. This 
dreadful war has upset everything so I suppose my 
brother has lost his practice in all these four years he was 
away and yet, of course, people must be ill just the same, 
whether there's a war or not, and all I ask is who's to 

22 



I DISCOVER AMERICA 

take care of them? Suppose, for instance, you should 
be terribly ill, or your little boy how dreadful it would 
have been if there had been no physician there to take 
charge of the case, because they were all fighting the ne- 
groes I mean, of course, the Rebels why, the child's 
relatives would never forgive you, though it would hardly 
be your fault, as they sent you here, and you would have 
had to obey your orders, of course . . ." 

"Of course, ma'am," Nana said quietly. 

"But Robert my brother is back now, and so if any- 
thing should happen to the little boy," Aunt Addie went 
on, calmly amalgamating, as she always did, her recent 
suppositions with the existing facts, and treating the 
result as a natural consequence, "why, I'm sure Dr. Cald- 
well will be only too glad to attend him. He's had a 
great deal of experience with children. He has four 
boys of his own." 

"Indeed, ma'am," said Nana attentively, "it would be 
a comfort to feel that there was a good medical man 
handy by, in a new country, too." 

"Exactly," Aunt Addie replied, "and that's why I men- 
tion it. Do you expect to be anywhere in the neighbour- 
hood of New York?" 

"It is very likely, ma'am," Nana said guardedly, "and 
for the sake of a good doctor. . . ." 

"There would be no objection just where you settled 
I see, I see, perfectly," Aunt Addie went on rapidly, "so 
long as you were within easy reach of New York. Very 
natural, I'm sure, and that is just where my brother lives, 
hardly more than an hour from the city. Ask them if 
there would be any objection to South Warwick, Con- 
necticut the water is very good and every one has 
always admitted the air was exceptional. Write and ask 
them." 

3 23 



THE INHERITANCE 

"There would be no objection to my going there, I'm 
sure, ma'am; at first, anyway," said Nana serenely 
and the discreet reader beholds us Aunt Addie's proteges 
from that moment. 

Observe the simplicity of the whole affair, I beg you, 
and bear in mind that when Aunt Addie told the doctor 
she knew all about us, she honestly supposed she did. 
Had she not talked steadily every day for two weeks to 
Nana, who tended her assiduously through the painful 
results of a rough winter crossing, taught her a new cro- 
chet stitch, gave her her arm on the deck and waited on 
her, generally, so unobtrusively that Aunt Addie, in all 
simplicity, actually offered her services to an afflicted lady 
with four sick children! There was no one on board 
that did not like and admire Nana, I believe. She did 
not know the meaning of sea-sickness, and even the 
spoiled, nervous little American children obeyed her in- 
voluntarily. Their mothers invariably referred to her 
as that nice nurse of Miss Caldwell's: we happened to 
be (in spite of the hardly ended war) the only persons in 
mourning on the boat, and it was almost inevitable that 
we should be associated in people's minds. Years after- 
ward I met, professionally, the mother of two young men, 
Baltimoreans, whom I treated for some unimportant ill- 
ness, and she recognised me and reminded me of the time 
we came to America together, "with your aunt, Miss 
Caldwell, and that kind English nurse, who took care of 
the twins when I was so sick you remember, doctor ?" 

Oh, there's no doubt Fate fitted it all together very 
neatly! If any one had told Aunt Addie that she had 
done all the talking, ventured all the assertions, suggested 
her views as to my establishment in South Warwick and 
my upbringing there, invented a family for me in Eng- 
land, who, for reasons best known to Aunt Addie, pre- 
24 



I DISCOVER AMERICA 

ferred to send me to America ; and that Nana had merely 
assented gravely to part of her chatter and simply kept 
silence before the rest of it, the good lady would have 
been seriously hurt. She would have assured that per- 
son that she only answered a deserving stranger's ques- 
tions and gave advice when urged. 

And so when we landed in New York, there were 
three of us for the Doctor to put into the waiting car- 
riage and afterwards into the railway coach, and I am 
quite convinced indeed he admitted to me years after- 
ward that he supposed me to be the son of his sister's 
maid, when he gathered up the luggage at South War- 
wick, and was distressed at her need for such an appen- 
dage in his democratic household. But she soon unde- 
ceived him. 

"Can you recommend a good moderate-priced boarding 
house for Mrs. False, Robert ? Later she can look about 
her a little. She has been very thoughtful of me on the 
trip, and the English always find our prices here so high 
I'd like to save her unnecessary expense, though there's 
plenty, of course Hughie must have the best but still, 
his people might as well be saved from absolute fleecing, 
such as they'd get in that dreadful Warwick Hotel. . . ." 

I can see the look of relief on his face, now. 

"Oh, I see, Addie, I thought it meant bringing a child 
into the house, and I'm sorry to say Bert and Carey 
both have the measles. But if the lady " 

"She's Hughie's nurse," Aunt Addie interrupted briefly, 
"and I have never had the measles, Robert. You might 
have remembered that, I should think." 

"And forbidden the boys to indulge in them ?" he said 
laughing. "You haven't changed, have you, Addie? 
How would the Banks's do for the little boy? They've 

25 



THE INHERITANCE 

advertised for boarders, now their father's on crutches 
and the brother's lost his arm." 

"Were you in the war? Where's your red coat?" I 
demanded suddenly, and that was the first time that ever 
I spoke to the Doctor. 



CHAPTER IV 

In Which I Look About Me 

IF South Warwick had not been suffering from an 
epidemic of measles when I entered it, I am con- 
vinced that my subsequent career there would have 
been vastly different. In the first place, I should never 
have been for a month one of the Doctor's household 
which was, as I now know, my open sesame to Warwick 
society at large, ten years later. In the second place, 
Aunt Addie would not have strengthened her already defi- 
nite conviction that she knew all about me which in its 
turn subtly but unceasingly wrought upon the Doctor till 
I verily believe he would have said offhand (after a few 
years) that he knew all about me! In the third place, I 
should never have known the boys, and Hux and Robert 
and Bert and Gary (poor little Caryl) have been so much 
a part of my life and my affairs my profession, my work 
in the world, which would never have been what it is, 
but for them that I simply can't, even in fancy, plan 
what that life would have been without them. 

Let me look back, then, a moment, and take you with 
me, if I can, so that you can see the old house with my 
round, childish eyes, as it looked to me that night. It 
was large the largest house I had ever been in. A ram- 
bling, roomy, comfortable house, set well back from the 
street, and far from the centre of the village at that 
time. Later, the town flowed round it and engulfed it 
and the pasture that adjoined it came near to being a 
factory site in the 8o's; but at that time it would have 
been almost too far for a physician, had the Doctor not 

27 



THE INHERITANCE 

made himself so necessary to the Warwickians that they 
came (or sent) the mile from the town hall that he moved 
before Gary was born. 

That was five years ago, and Bert was only a year old 
or so, and remembered his mother as little as the tiny 
thing she left behind her. Just as they were reasonably 
certain that the delicate little fellow was firmly settled in 
this world and meant to add to his months of sojourn in 
it, the war broke out, and the Doctor went out with his 
regiment, and sent for his sister Gary to take care of the 
children, which she did to every one's satisfaction until 
her own soldier-lover came back to her, with a bullet in 
his shoulder, when she promptly married him and handed 
her four little nephews over to Aunt Addie. 

It was on her voyage to take over this charge that we 
encountered that lady, and so, as a matter of fact, she 
knew me before she knew them, for she had never seen 
any of them, though Robert, in his capacity of god-son, 
wrote her a dutiful letter of thanks each birthday. He 
was nine, and loomed very large to me, as he stood in 
the big central hall, one arm over Huxley's shoulder, 
staring defiantly at us. Hux was as large, in spite of the 
year and a half between them : they were often taken for 
twins. 

"Well, well, here we are!" said the Doctor, a little 
wearily, perhaps, for Aunt Addie had discoursed to him 
on the impropriety of measles at such a time till even I 
felt embarrassed, for I knew that one couldn't help having 
them. 

"How is everything?" 

Rob advanced a step and fixed me with his eye. 

"Your little boy had better look out, Aunt Addie," he 
said instructively, "for the measles is a terrible catching 
disease." 

28 



I LOOK ABOUT ME 

"And I'll bet you he gets 'em, too," Hux prophesied 
gloomily. 

These were perfectly characteristic remarks, and I 
never think of them without a smile ! 

"Gracious, child, he's not my little boy !" from Aunt 
Addie, fussily, "he's little Hughie Gordon and are you 
Rob ? Have you got a kiss for aunty and Huxley, too ? 
How much they look as you used to, Robert ! Do either 
of the others favour poor Alberta?" 

"Bert very much, Gary a little," he said calmly, and 
though ready tears sprang to Aunt Addie's eyes, he did 
not even clear his throat. 

And here I must digress again to add that I never, 
even when I came to know him so well, remarked in the 
Doctor the slightest evidence of feeling at any chance ref- 
erence and, indeed, they were very few to his young 
wife. He must have loved her, or why should he have 
been at the pains to marry her against her parents' con- 
sent ? And yet, beyond her picture in a velvet frame on 
his bureau and the old square piano with her Scotch 
ballads in a yellowed pile on it, there was actually no sign 
nor mention of her in the house. I have heard Aunt 
Addie painfully questioning the two older boys about her 
with the doubtfully wise intention of awaking filial mem- 
ories, but almost in vain. She played on the piano and 
sewed, yes, and her eyes were grey, they thought, and 
she told them stories, yes, and of course they loved her. 
But that was all. She seems to have been one of those 
curiously colourless souls who pass out of life, leaving 
no wake behind them. She had added four inhabitants 
to the world, had borne them in agony, stamped her fea- 
tures on two of them, and was less to them than the 
pretty young Aunt who succeeded her! The greatest 
tragedy of her seemed to be the abstract one : the inevi- 



THE INHERITANCE 

table sadness of a young mother taken from her children. 

And it can't be denied that the Doctor pushed philos- 
ophy to an almost stoic point in his relations with life. 
He worked hard for his boys, exacted little from them, 
and as each in turn disappointed him (for, one way and 
another, they all did) mentioned the fact quietly and went 
on his way; hard working, interested in life as a battle- 
ground, a spectacle and a laboratory. I really believe that 
his wife was to him precisely the incident she appeared to 
be : husbandhood and fatherhood were his as they should 
be every healthy man's; had the one relation lasted as 
long as the other he would have been as faithful to it, 
and it would have occupied its proportionate share of his 
life. It had not so lasted, and that portion of the book 
was closed. That was all. It is not the temperament 
of which the heroes for ladies' novels are made, I grant 
you that, but it is a temperament that has a bigger role 
on life's stage than most ladies' novelists would assign 
to it. 

And so, although Aunt Addie came prepared to com- 
fort two small boys who could not remember their 
mother, she found that her sympathies were only re- 
quired, as a matter of fact, for two small boys with the 
measles. This foe to childhood's liberty was raging 
through the village, owing to the good old-fashioned 
method of sending the hitherto immune to play with the 
victim "so that they could catch them and get them over 
with," and as there were no trained nurses then, mothers 
and aunts, older sisters and neighbours relieved each 
other at the feverish, irritable bedsides. 

Dr. Caldwell was in a sad way, for old Bridget, nurse 
since Huxley's babyhood, was crippled with sciatica, and 
good, trusty women hard to come by, even for a well- 
loved doctor, just then. 

30 



I LOOK ABOUT ME 

I can see him now, as he stood perplexed in the hall, 
listening to the voluble Norah's reasons for there being 
no supper, and her all afternoon with the sick children, 
and all, and the good beefsteak ready for the broiler, but 
Bert not willing to leave her out of his sight ! 

"Well, well," he broke in impatiently, "we'll forage 
for something cold, that's all. Go to Bert, and I'll look 
at them both, after I've had a sandwich. Then I'll try 
to see about a place for Mrs. Mrs. " 

"False, sir," said Nana, curtseying slightly, "and I 
couldn't think of being such a trouble, sir. If it's not 
taken as putting forward at all, Miss Caldwell, which 
I'm not one to wish to appear so, I could whisk on my 
apron and hot up something for the doctor: gentlemen 
must eat, as we all know." 

"Oh, yes, Mrs. False, pray do," sighed Aunt Addie, 
"it would be such a relief. And, boys, take care of 
Hughie ; won't you ? Will you show me my room, Rob- 
ert?" 

He started upstairs with her and I started shyly after 
Nana my place was always with her, of course. But to 
my surprise she pushed me gently back. Did I hesitate 
a little, as I left her, and crossed a bridge I was never 
to go back over? I don't know. Did her voice 
break, as she sent me and stayed behind? I cannot 
remember. 

"No, no, lambie, stay with the young gentlemen," she 
said quietly; "the kitchen's no place for you." 

"Certainly not," Aunt Addie called over the bannister; 
"boys, haven't you any toys for Hughie ? I depend upon 
you to amuse him ... I do hope, Robert, there's a 
southern exposure, I feel the dampness so! I suppose 
Gary felt she was justified, but the notice was so short 
. . . you may depend entirely upon Mrs. False ... I 

31 



THE INHERITANCE 

supposed you knew, my dear Robert, that I never had 
the measles : Gary had them when you did . . ." 

Thus Aunt Addie up the stairs, across the landing, and 
on again to the second story. How many of her mono- 
logues I was destined to hear ! Monologues that trapped 
the unwary by proceeding steadily for minutes, while 
attention wandered with impunity, only to stop short with 
an unexpected direct question, which brought that same 
listener to a disgraced apology, inevitably! 

"I have some white mice, if you like them," Rob 
vouchsafed grandly. "I don't use them much, now. I 
suppose your mother died, too? We had black suits, 
when ours did." 

"Yes, please," I answered timidly, in a general way, 
and went in search of the mice. (I was rather surprised 
than otherwise, the next day, to hear Norah telling Nana 
it was no wonder the poor little fellow took to the boys 
so, with his mother gone like their own ! 

"Children make friends quickly at Master Hugh's 
age," said Nana quietly, and went on her inscrutable 
way.) 

So when I went in to supper that evening I sat on the 
Doctor's right hand, my hair brushed by Aunt Addie, and 
Nana waited on us, bringing in first a great hot steak 
("I made bold to grill it, sir, though Cook had laid the 
spider out"), then a mound of mashed potatoes wreathed 
with pink ham slices, and then, "shall I serve the fruit 
tart, sir?" says Nana. 

"Oho: she means apple-pie!" derided Rob, as it came 
on, and Aunt Addie corrected him instantly : "Nonsense, 
Rob, of course it's tart ! I suppose Hugh won't take any, 
Mrs. Gordon?" 

"No, thank you, madam; Master Hugh will do best 
with his bread and milk," said Nana staidly, while I gazed 

32 



I LOOK ABOUT ME 

with interest at the young lords of creation wolfing down 
the steak and ham. 

"I see you bring up your little charge properly," the 
Doctor approved, and Nana nodded respectfully. 

"I'm sure I try my best, sir," she said simply. 

A hurry call snatched the Doctor from us, just then, 
but not before he had separated Rob and Hux in one of 
their frequent rough-and-tumbles (they were devoted 
brothers, but constantly tempting each other to a fight), 
soothed Norah's ire at the half of to-morrow's meals all 
cooked up by the English nurse, and me with me hands 
full and too full, Doctor, and well you know it! an- 
swered Gary's fretful screams, and sketched out a hasty 
plan for Aunt Addie's looking for extra help in the 
morning. 

He left, I say, in all this hullaballoo, and doubtless ex- 
pected to return to it, poor man, but Fate (and Nana) 
had willed otherwise, for when he came back a scant 
hour afterwards, I was just ready to go upstairs with 
Aunt Addie, who embroidered placidly in the sitting-room 
while Hux and Rob struggled with to-morrow's sums, 
and I arranged dominoes in gratifying patterns on the 
rug before the fire. 

"There! I forgot to see about the Banks' cottage, 
after all !" he cried, "and after that delicious supper, too ! 
I haven't had a supper like that in I don't know when." 

"You needn't bother, Robert," said Aunt Addie plac- 
idly; "Mrs. False is going to stop with us till the boys 
are well she's had a great deal of experience with sick- 
ness. The boys seem to take to her, she says, and then 
Cook can get back to her kitchen. I know from Gary 
how hard it is to get decent servants here, and every- 
thing will be more or less upset till the sickness is out 
of the house. She will take the room next to the boys', 

33 



THE INHERITANCE 

and there's one next hers I had her get ready 
for Hughie." 

"Why but Addie," he began, "that would be very 
lucky for us, but I'm not sure that we have any 
right " 

Aunt Addie waved her hand regally. "It's quite all 
right, Robert, I assure you," she said; "I know Mrs. 
False very well (I believe with all my soul that she 
thought she did!), and I assure you that she makes all 
her own arrangements of that kind. Besides, as she says, 
she can look about her, and Hughie will certainly be bet- 
ter off here than in an hotel." 

"Oh, well, if you put it that way, I agree with you," 
he admitted with relief. "It seems a little unusual, but 
you know the English better than I do, Addie, and I'll 
be glad to pay anything that's right " 

"Gracious, Robert, I wouldn't think of it !" Aunt Addie 
exclaimed. "She's a most respectable woman and quite 
independent. You'll look her out a nice little cottage, of 
course, and keep an eye on Hughie I as good as prom- 
ised her that much for, of course, he's a heavy responsi- 
bility to her, now, so far from the family." 

"Why, certainly, Addie anything I can do," the Doctor 
answered, one ear at the stairs. But no crying of Gary's, 
or raging of Bert's sounded from above, and we went 
upstairs together. When we got to the sickroom I was 
not so surprised as he, for I had seen Nana at work there. 
I had watched the dusty litter brushed away, the tum- 
bled sheets replaced with fresh linen, the cool lotion 
sopped on the blotched faces, the comforting drink gurgle 
down the parched throats. And now Nana sat, in stiff, 
clean print, by the shaded lamp, reading gently in her 
soft English voice (ah, how soon an expatriate begins 
to notice that voice!) and two quiet little fellows lis- 

34 



I LOOK ABOUT ME 

tened drowsily to the moving tale of the Babes in the 
Wood. 

"Well, well!" said Dr. Caldwell. And that was all, 
but it spoke whole volumes, and Nana appreciated them 
and curtseyed gratefully. 

"I hope there's no objection to us stopping while I look 
about me, sir?" she asked tactfully; "I'm well accus- 
tomed to the care of the sick, and Master Hugh will be 
no trouble, I'll warrant him, for I can keep him by me 
if necessary he's had the measles it's two years now. 
Nurse seems fair ill with her own troubles, I see, and 
I could give her a rub now and then, and if the other 
young gentlemen should come down, and I hear that 
Cook's not too fond of the village help " 

"You couldn't please me better, Mrs. False," said the 
Doctor, "and I feel more relieved about the boys than 
I've been since they came down. You're a good nurse, 
I see." 

"Thank you, sir. Then I'll stop a bit. And now, Mas- 
ter Hugh, your bed is ready, and I'll bath you and set- 
tle you before it's time for their next drink." 

And by the next morning (so adaptable are we to good 
fortune!) we were actually settled into what seemed but 
my natural and simple life to me who was not three 
weeks out of a London gutter ! Had Nana planned with 
Machiavellian cunning to make a great gap in my life, a 
blank that staggered memory, she could have contrived 
nothing better than the sudden change to shipboard, the 
position of importance and interest I assumed there, the 
utter newness of everything in a small country town a 
whole Atlantic away from my small miseries of scarce 
a month ago. In a week's time I seemed to myself, very 
simply, a sort of brother to Bert and Gary, and at least 
a cousin to the older boys ! 

35 



THE INHERITANCE 

I revered them and thought them especially Rob 
infallible, but on my own side I was not without great 
interest for them. To begin with, though Bridget and 
Norah would have died (or worse, left the household!) 
if asked to add a prefix to the other boys' names, I was 
always Master Hugh to them nothing else would have 
been possible, with Nana's grave example. Then, from 
her, at least, the boys enjoyed the same dignity, and 
though they grinned covertly at first and mocked one an- 
other with the title, it grew, with custom, dearer (as I 
have seen titles grow on my adopted countrymen since) 
and before the invalids were well downstairs, selected 
playmates were inveigled into hanging about the side 
porches to hear Nana's unconscious performance as she 
called Rob and Hux in to tea ! 

It was well that she quietly took over this and many 
other little responsibilities, for poor Bridget must have 
found early that real nursing was a sinecure compared 
to attendance on an English lady suffering from change 
of climate. Whatever native tendencies to waiting on 
herself Aunt Addie may have possessed had long ago 
vanished under the insidious spell of deft English serv- 
ice, and her bell tinkled cheerfully through the short au- 
tumn days, till Bridget quite gave up the idea of having 
sciatica, as she confided to Nana, for sure there was no 
time for it at all ! 

Not the least of Nana's triumphs, by the way, was her 
skillful avoidance of any issue with these two faithful 
Paddies (as we called them then). No hint of Hunga- 
rian cook, Japanese butler or Swedish parlourmaid had 
come to the Land of the Free, at that period of domestic 
economy, and it was to the Green Isle that we looked 
with one accord for ministering angels of the larder 
and broom. Nothing but infinite tact could have enabled 

36 



I LOOK ABOUT ME 

Nana to conceal her English scorn of the crudeness and 
the rudeness of the two bare-armed, voluble, warm- 
hearted Paddies that daily, yes, hourly, shocked Aunt 
Addie's sensibilities and worried the Doctor at every 
shock! And not even her tact, I am afraid, could have 
made endurable to their loving jealousy her quick su- 
premacy in the headless household, her standing with the 
Doctor, their idol, even her importance to Aunt Addie, 
their terror. But circumstances worked for her. Even 
I could see that the little boys were better under her re- 
gime than Bridget's, and the boys were dearer than all to 
faithful Bridget, who had had them from the monthly, 
Mrs. False, and walked the floor with 'em more nights 
than ever they'll know ! And Bridget, freed of all re- 
sponsibility beyond her kitchen, gained in leisure and 
peace of mind what she lost in authority and realised it. 
So we lingered and lingered, and before Bert and Gary 
were well, before the shine was off my new black, before 
I had remembered to ask Nana when my mother died, 
even (which I had decided to do, I believe, after Robert's 
first question about her), the last shreds of my old life 
had faded to filmy, misty fragments and dissolved in the 
clear, sunny present of a happy, healthy child among his 
natural mates and equals. 



CHAPTER V 

In Which I Introduce the Reader to Chrissy 

1WAS between six and seven years old and so I 
judge that we had been living in America (Nana 
still called it "the States") for about a year. Nana 
was sitting placidly at her sewing in the little sitting 
room and I was playing with some lettered blocks at her 
feet, for the noon sun was too intense to allow of my 
going out, she thought the American August with its 
cloudless heat alarmed her exceedingly and the green 
blinds were down, making a cool dimness in the fresh, 
clean little cottage. Everything in our house shone and 
burnished and twinkled with cleanliness. The windows 
were diamonds, the walls were pearls, the little "yard" 
with its poppies and phlox was, to carry out the simile, 
emerald spangled with ruby and coral. The path to the 
door was edged with oyster shells and the floor, where 
there was no carpet, was scrubbed with sand. The whole 
interior was wonderfully restful, for Nana had a hunger 
for old country surroundings, and in an era of varnished 
pine atrocities and imitation ebony and jig-saw walnut 
horrors, had quietly bought at auctions and gratefully 
taken from overloaded garrets the worn, solid old shapes 
despised and rejected of the grandchildren of that time 
to be paid for by them later and "restored" at enormous 
cost! Nana did not select the old dressers and high- 
boys and oaken chairs and tables because she was aesthetic, 
far from it, but because they reminded her of home and 
could be purchased for a few dollars. 

38 



I INTRODUCE CHRISSY 

And so an old clock with wooden works ticked slum- 
berously on the dresser, and an old Windsor chair with a 
clean, patched cushion and a funny little old footstool 
stood near the Franklin grate with gilt balls on the top 
and a big jug of sunflowers where the fire would be, and 
an old settle, of bog-oak (as we found thirty years later 
I refused five hundred dollars for it) painted red then, 
and softened by means of a worn pew-cushion given her 
by the sexton of the Methodist Church when she nursed 
his wife through pneumonia, filled one side of the room 
and was for me alternately coach, boat and prairie 
schooner, as well as toy repository and general napping 
place. There were flowers everywhere, for Nana could 
not live without them, and never ceased to wonder at the 
dreary wastes of vegetable tins, dog bones and arid or 
slimy soil that stretched from her neighbour's doors; to 
her mind poverty had no excuse for flowerlessness, when 
a few pennies would purchase a packet of seeds, and slips 
and cuttings were to be had for the asking. So that 
hardly a day passed without somebody's inquiring the 
name of her English wall flower, or purple Canterbury 
bells or giant mignonette, and more than one lady driv- 
ing by (for we lived on the outskirts of the town on the 
way to the Millpond woods, a favourite drive) had 
stopped to speak about her peonies and fuchsias and left 
an order for some sewing before she went away. 

Well, on this hot August day the Doctor drove up 
behind his chestnut mare, threw the reins to Thomas, an 
ex-slave who had gone through the War with him and 
always called him "Major," jumped out and hurried in 
to the cottage. For Nana always called it a cottage : it 
was but a story and a half and had but four rooms and 
a large closet. 

"Can you come with me directly, Mrs. False?" he 

4 39 



THE INHERITANCE 

asked, with a "Hello, Master Hughie !" for me. "There's 
a poor lady up by the millpond that's going to need you 
badly in a few hours. An English lady, and I think you'll 
be a heap of comfort to her ; name's Mrs. Vereker per- 
haps I've spoken of her?" 

"Yes, sir, I think you have, sir. It's her first, I believe, 
doctor?" 

"Her first what ?" said I, and he laughed and said : 

"Her first trouble, Master Hughie! You can leave 
your young gentleman at the house, if you like, Mrs. 
False." 

And to this day I don't know why I wasn't "left at the 
house" ; many a day I had spent with Bert and Gary when 
Nana was similarly occupied. But this time I wasn't; 
I drove with Nana and Thomas to Mrs. Vereker's, when 
she had packed her little bag and taken off her apron and 
hidden the key behind the shutter, and the Doctor said 
he'd be around presently and see how things were going. 
They must have gone pretty well for a long time, for he 
didn't appear, and I wandered, much interested and 
amused, through the strangest house I had ever entered. 

It was a low-eaved, rambling, very old farmhouse, re- 
paired and perfectly weather-tight, but utterly paintless 
from a century's rains and snows and suns. It stood far 
back from the road, surrounded with larches, pines and 
hemlocks, in the midst of tall, straggling weeds and bur- 
docks and mulleins of every description ; the path to the 
door, a broken flagged walk, was grown thick with grass 
and moss. The windows were heavily curtained and 
nearly all closed; there was not an animal or fowl or 
flower to be seen about. 

Nana tried the front door, but it was locked, and in- 
deed a tiny fern was growing up in the crack of it ! So 
we went around and entered by a side door, more in use, 

40 



I INTRODUCE CHRISSY 

evidently, and Nana asked a middle-aged mulattress who 
met us there to take her to the lady. 

"I'm expected, I suppose?" she asked in her low, com- 
petent voice, and the woman nodded and started up the 
stairs. 

"You stop about till I come, deary," said Nana to me, 
"and mind you don't meddle or touch anything, will you ? 
I'll be down soon," and they left me alone. 

I peeped into the kitchen behind me and was gratified 
to see one of the maids from the Doctor's house there, 
spreading flannels on a little clothes horse before the 
fire. 

"Well, Master Hughie, you here?" she inquired good- 
naturedly ; "well, well ! Hark what was that up above ?" 

She dashed up the stairs, and after a comprehensive 
glance at another mulatto woman, older than the first one, 
who was stirring something in a bowl, in a corner, and 
wiping her eyes on her sleeve, I left that part of the house 
and peeped into what should have been the dining-room. 

And here began the strangeness of the house, for the 
room was packed full and literally running over with 
books. The dining table was piled high with them, like 
a counter in a book shop; the sideboard held them in 
rows; the eight chairs that stood against the walls car- 
ried each its load of thick paper pamphlets. Stout pine 
shelves ran around the room to a considerable height and 
they too were book-filled. The blinds were down, and 
a few hot shafts of noon sun struck through little holes 
in them and gleamed like arrows through the dusty air. 
And nowhere in the room was a sign or symbol of its 
original purpose not a dish nor spoon nor glass. It ap- 
peared to have been thus crammed with print for years, 
with that mysterious but inevitable use-and-wont that 
stamps the rooms of human habitation and forbids them 

41 



THE INHERITANCE 

to lie or give even a false impression of the purposes to 
which they have been put. 

We go into so many rooms, we who struggle with 
the pain and folly of man and womankind, and we grow 
very wise in the interpretation of them. What is it that 
tells us, Madam X, as we sit in your drawing room and 
stare impatiently at your Louis Seize gilt-and-cane while 
we wait to be summoned to your bedside, that you could 
not distinguish that monarch from Julius Caesar or George 
the Fourth, that the upholsterer purchased them for you 
when Monsieur your husband made that lucky turn in 
copper, and that you are secretly afraid to sit on them 
a.nd would have preferred red plush? The chairs tell 
us, madam, and we read your alabaster statues on col- 
oured marble pedestals as we read your temperature on our 
clinical thermometer. And you, kindly Mrs. Y., what is 
it to us that your sunny bedroom is in perfect, pathetic 
order, every table in place and your snowy counterpane 
fresh creased, and only photographs and a trained nurse 
to fill the deep window sills and roomy rocking chairs? 
To our shrewd eyes the children clamber down out of 
the silver frames and fill the chairs with doll babies and 
guns and wooden horses; their mended stockings over- 
flow from your empty work basket, their dusty shoes soil 
that lustrous bed covering. The room speaks to us as 
loudly as your pulse. And when we are hastily called 
from our hotel, Contessa Z (how glad you are of an 
"American doctor!"), and interrupt our sight-seeing to 
consult with il dottore in your noble husband's Roman 
palace, how pitifully do your small, hopeless efforts to 
transport a little of the Anglo-Saxon into those echoing 
Latin corridors call out to us! It is not the fever that 
is holding you down, Contessa, but the empty, scornful 
walls, that have echoed for centuries to passions you 

42 



I INTRODUCE CHRISS.Y 

can never comprehend, that have been stained with crimes 
and lighted with visions meaningless to you, but strong 
enough to wear out even your fresh and furious vitality. 
Your tapestries tell tales, Contessa, and they counsel a 
change of air quite as strongly as your pallor! 

Behold me, then, pushing my way, a curious little fel- 
low, through this dusky cave of volumes, and wonder- 
ing what they were for. I had never touched a book, 
so far as I know, beyond Nana's prayer book and her 
cook book (those two bulwarks of her sex!) and a cer- 
tain highly coloured history of Cock Robin. But I like to 
think that they interested me from the first, those calf- 
bound comrades, and that we took kindly to each other 
at once. 

I went into the next room, a long, low apartment that 
filled that half of the house, and here again the books 
crowded every chink and corner. There had been at some 
time various ornaments and pictures scattered about the 
room, I suppose, for when the shelves had been put up 
around the walls the pictures had been taken down and 
piled here and there on the floor, and there they lay, traps 
for the unwary feet, while a huddle of dusty vases and 
shapeless objects filled the four corners of the topmost 
shelves, relentlessly driven back by the ever-flowing tide 
of books. They slid from back to seat on the arm chairs, 
they stood in tottery piles in the open fireplace, they es- 
caped into the narrow, central hall and nestled in little 
groups in the stair corners. I wondered again what they 
were for; and picked my way amongst them up to the 
next floor. Here were two great glass cases of them, 
stealing nearly all the passageway from the upper hall 
into which three doors opened. I pushed one cautiously 
and peered in : it was piled from floor to ceiling, nearly, 
all around the sides, with stacked periodicals and reviews 

43 



THE INHERITANCE 

of various colours, each colour arrayed neatly by itself, 
so that the effect was that of a charming little square 
room, artificially built up, with a tiny ell where the win- 
dow was left free to light it: this delighted me hugely, 
and I planned to play there one day. 

At this point a sharp, short cry and a sort of whimper- 
ing caught my ear and I stepped out and pushed open 
the second door, whence it issued. Here was a large 
and well-lighted room, and though it was nearly as full 
of books as the others, it was quite different, for it was 
obviously in occupation. There was a big four-posted 
bed with dusty, torn hangings and tumbled bed clothes; 
a heavy mahogany writing table with a great soiled ink- 
stand in the midst of papers, blotters, pen-racks, maps 
and sketches ; chairs and tables piled with the omnipresent 
volumes, which lined two of the walls and crowded the 
chimney-piece and the dressing-table itself, and finally, 
there were trays of food in various stages of disorder all 
about the room. Glasses of water stood here and there, 
odd shoes and slippers peeped from the valances, in the 
middle of the floor lay a little ring of petticoats, like a 
nest, just as they had been stepped out of and left. A 
flannel bed gown had been thrown into one corner, and 
Nana, her trim neatness more marked than ever in this 
maelstrom of untidiness, was wrapping another gown 
about a woman who cowered over a fire in a Franklin 
grate a fire, though the locusts were buzzing hotly out 
of doors. 

"There, there," Nana was saying as I stole softly in; 
"there, there, poor soul! This is no warmer than the 
other, but you shall have it, since you're that set upon it, 
and change again, if you like; I'm never for thwarting 
at such times ; it's not good." 

The woman, whose face was deeply flushed and her 

44 



I INTRODUCE CHRISSY 

eyes scared and glazed, began to whine and moan again, 
and bowed herself over in the tumbled chair ; a book fell 
off the arm of it. 

"Think how soon 'twill be over now, and you so happy, 
that's a dear," Nana soothed her, "and when it comes 
again, now, do like I told you, you'll find 'twill ease you. 
There's many worse off than you, I'll warrant you. Walk 
about a bit, now, and the Doctor'll be here in no time. 
And everything all ready, and soon you'll forget it all !" 

"No, no, no! Never!" the woman cried and bowed 
over again in the chair, moaning and clinching her hands. 

I looked about for the sick person, but saw no one 
answering that description, to my mind, and stared dis- 
tastefully at the litter of candle-sticks and fresh linen 
and tea-cups that covered the chest of drawers and the 
streaked dust of the dressing mirror; children have nor- 
mally, I think, a strong feeling for freshness and order, 
though they are not often credited with it. 

Just then the woman in the chair uttered a sharp, 
angry cry, and then another; her face distorted, and she 
alarmed me ; I was relieved to see the Doctor step quickly, 
yet softly his way into the room. I knew that he made 
people feel better. 

"You're none too soon, Doctor," said Nana hurriedly; 
"she's getting a bit wild-like, poor dear goodness gra- 
cious, lambie, how came you here? Run out, now, and 
play in the front mind Nana directly, now!" 

And at another sight of that crimson, twisted face and 
another sound of that choked, groaning voice, I ran out 
willingly enough, only wondering at the pleasant smile 
the Doctor gave me and his unconcerned greeting, as he 
took the lady's hand. 

"Well, well, Mrs. Vereker, we're getting along, I see, 
getting along famously !" 

45 



THE INHERITANCE 

"Will he cure her out of the black bottle, Nana?" I 
whispered, as she pushed me out of the door, and he 
heard me he had the ears of a lynx and called back 
good-naturedly : 

"Not that bottle, Master Hughie, but I'll cure her, 
don't worry ! Let's have the pulse, now . . ." and I left 
them leaning over her, and pushed open the third door 
on that floor. 

This room too was, as I had begun to expect, book- 
lined and book-piled. A great desk full of pigeon holes 
stood in the exact middle of it, and the heavy carpet 
displayed a little worn path, about a foot in width, that 
wound about the room, just as a path winds through a 
meadow, when the same feet have walked the same route 
for many years. In an alcove I saw a cot bed, spread 
neatly enough with a blue-and- white knitted cover of the 
sort the American housewives used to make, before the 
inventive Mr. Whitney spared them the necessity of such 
manual labour, and a tin bath and water can, of a pattern 
familiar to me, stood at the foot of it. Except for the 
bed and this bath I believe every article of furniture, save 
the arm chair before the desk, to have been covered with 
books : even the footstool bore a fat, heavy volume, open, 
upon its tiny top. 

Standing before the shelves in the act of reaching down 
a book from one of them, I beheld for the first time Pro- 
fessor Christopher Vereker in the most characteristic at- 
titude of his life. He was a lean, bald gentleman, with 
kindly, weary eyes, shielded by a green shade, like a sort 
of scholarly halo, bound about his brow. I never, in 
all the years of my acquaintance with him, saw him at- 
tired otherwise than in a rusty frock coat, with loose 
grey trousers, crumpled but perfectly clean linen, that had 
the air of having been made for a much larger man, a 

46 




"'Will he cure her out of the black bottle, Nana?'" 



I INTRODUCE CHRISSY 

black clerical tie and a red-and-white bandanna handker- 
chief drifting out of his right trouser pocket. His father- 
in-law, I learned later, had presented him with a case 
of these handkerchiefs some incredible number of doz- 
ens and they had become a part of his personality. 

As he reached down his book I coughed slightly and 
closed the door (for I disliked the steady groaning that 
came from the other room) and these sounds caught his 
attention, so that he turned and saw me. His mild stare 
embarrassed me not a little; he seemed to be looking 
through me, and I shifted my feet about and coughed 
again. 

"Ah . . . how do you do?" he said at last. 

"How do you do?" I answered, relieved. And there 
our conversation hung fire, so to speak, and we might 
have been standing there to this day had Nana not ap- 
peared, and taken me by the hand to lead me away. 

"The nurse, sir," she said, making her quiet little 
English curtsey. "All's going well inside, sir. Come, 
lambie," and we turned to go. I shall never forget the 
extraordinary expression on the Professor's face at that 
moment. He seemed to come down to earth with a bump 
and regarded me with a positively dazed stare. 

"Is this the surely this is not is it all over?" he 
said vaguely, and Nana, with a whispered God 'a' mercy! 
advanced firmly to him and shook him gently but with 
decision. 

"No, sir," she answered, perfectly respectfully, "no, sir, 
not yet, sir. This is a grown boy, sir." 

"Ah. ... I had not supposed it could be so large 
..." he said, blinking hungrily at his book, half closed 
out of some dim politeness. 

"No, sir, it will be much smaller," Nana assured him, 
still respectfully (everybody was always quite respectful 

47 



THE INHERITANCE 

to the Professor, somehow), "and a great comfort and 
blessing to you, I'm sure, sir " 

"Mrs. False! Mrs. False!" 

The Doctor was calling in a short, authoritative voice 
I had never heard from him, and Nana ran hastily in to 
him; she was behind the closed door before her voice 
had ceased to echo in our ears. 

And now that troublesome moaning grew louder and 
more constant; it rose higher in gusts and sank lower 
into muttering, querulous pleadings with some one, to be 
let alone, let alone, let alone. Soon we heard words dis- 
tinctly : 

"No! no! not another step! I will not go away! 
Oh! Oh! Oh!" 

The Professor began to walk nervously about and 
about the room on the little worn carpet path, and I, 
glancing uneasily at the wall, where the sounds came 
through, strode after him determinedly. Round and 
round we walked, as odd a pair of mortals, I dare say, 
as you would find in any one room in the Three King- 
doms, and still the misery endured in the room beyond 
the wall, and still the Professor turned the pages of the 
book he carried at the height of his nose. 

And now the moaning ceased a moment and we were 
aware of a scurry of steps. Then suddenly the voice began 
to wail and sob in utter abandonment the crying of a 
tired, hurt child: in some respects it was more painful 
than the groaning. 

"This this is frightful !" the Professor exclaimed hur- 
riedly, and strode to the door Nana had closed so pur- 
posely. He knocked, softly but decidedly, and in a mo- 
ment Nana was holding it partly open and confront- 
ing us. 

"Well, sir?" she inquired shortly, and I could see that 

48 



I INTRODUCE CHRISSY 

we were terribly inopportune, the Professor and I, and 
wondered how he dared to accost Nana in her strong- 
hold. 

"This this all this can nothing be done?" he be- 
sought her earnestly, searching her implacable face with 
his pale, disturbed eyes. "Surely the Doctor there must 
be some anaesthetic this is unreasonable . . ." 

"Unreasonable or not, sir, it's got to be," said Nana 
coldly, "and if you mean chloroform, no sir, not yet. 
There's many worse and longer at it than your lady, 
sir. Be patient, now, and all will be forgotten by morn- 
ing, I do assure you, sir. That's the way of it. It has 
to be." 

"If I could only help " 

"Yes, sir, of course," said Nana, with a slight but un- 
mistakable scorn ; "that's what many feels, sir. But you 
can't. So why don't you just go away, sir? Tis not like 
other pain, and in the end there's something to show for 
it, as I always say. Just go off this floor, now, there's 
a good man!" 

She had one ear turned from us and it was plain that 
not one of the heavy, whimpering breaths in the room 
escaped her. 

"Come now, that's better you're very good and 
brave." 

I heard the Doctor's voice, as gentle I will not say 
as a woman's, for no woman's voice could be so kind and 
yet so stern and strong as his floated out to us : I caught 
all that in it then, as I have so many times since and 
Nana began to close the door against us. 

"If you don't feel you could leave the house, sir, why, 
many gentlemen will always go to the cellar," she sug- 
gested, kindly but conclusively, "and that would be my 
advice, sir, at present. You may be sure all is right, sir." 

49 



THE INHERITANCE 

And the latch clicked. 

We found ourselves walking the little path again, and 
as he stopped suddenly and faced me (I had hold of the 
tails of his frock coat by now) I was brought to an 
equally sudden stop and collided violently with him. 

"These sufferings," he said abruptly, "differ from all 
others known to science, I understand, in that it is im- 
possible to reconstruct them from memory. You have 
always understood this, have you not?" 

"Y-yes, please, sir," I answered tremulously : I could 
not possibly have replied otherwise. 

"Very good. The curiously evanescent character 
hark!" 

A long wail of utter anguish struck across his dry 
voice, so that we both jumped and listened nervously, but 
it was not repeated. 

"This proves their character to be distinctly physio- 
logical and not, strictly speaking, pathological at all," he 
continued decisively; "you follow me?" 

"Y-yes, please, sir," I answered again, and suddenly 
a high, rending shriek rang through the house, another, 
and yet another. 

"No! No!" the voice screamed, "I will not I cannot! 
Christopher! Christopher! They're killing me!" 

"Great God, this is too much!" he exclaimed, and 
dashed out of the room and down the stairs, I clinging 
wildly to the tails of his coat and skipping through the 
air after him. But even as we passed the terrible door 
I could distinguish perfectly the hoarse, all but unhuman 
cries, Nana's soothing murmurs ("There, there, dear 
there, there!") and the stern, quick orders of my won- 
derful Doctor. 

Downstairs we flew, through the kitchen, where as in 
a dream I noted the younger mulatto woman gathering 

50 



I INTRODUCE CHRISSY 

flannel hastily from her rack and the elder kneeling on 
the floor with clasped hands and wet cheeks, her lips 
moving steadily. Out of that house of anguish we fled 
as one flees in nightmares, he with hands clapped to his 
ears, I swinging and swaying in his wake, gripping the 
coat tails like grim death a scare-crow couple, hag rid- 
den by one dreadful, compelling necessity, to outrun 
those snarling, panting noises. 

Across the yard we thundered, I in great, long, tiptoe 
strides that barely touched the earth, into the weather- 
beaten old barn, and up the slippery, treacherous, sagging 
steps to the loft, where we threw ourselves down with 
one accord and grovelled into the hay, burying our 
shamed heads in it, crowding it into our helpless, out- 
raged ears. I heard what I had never heard before: a 
man's harsh, heavy sobs, and to them I joined my own 
small pipe and wept, till, forgetting what I wept for, I 
fell into a deep, exhausted sleep. 

When I woke it was late afternoon and the sun was 
hard on his setting. I was hungry and confused and 
quite alone. In a vague way I recalled what had hap- 
pened, but only vaguely, and plodded toward the house, 
bent on finding out from Nana what it had all been about 
and why we had run so fast. 

The house, as I mounted the stair, was perfectly quiet, 
and perfectly quiet the room where Nana had mounted 
guard at noontime. I knocked gently, and receiving no 
answer, listened fearfully at the key hole. There, crouch- 
ing down, I heard distinctly a gentle humming and rec- 
ognized my nurse's voice, aye, even the old song she 
sang, a prime favourite of my own : 

"O the oak and the ash and the bonny ivy-tree, 
They all grow together in the North Countrie!" 

51 



THE INHERITANCE 

sang Nana softly, and I, knowing that she was always in 
the best of spirits when she sang this song, turned the 
knob boldly and entered the room. 

On the very threshold I stopped in amaze, for it was 
the same room, yet a different. All the stale melee of 
food and clothes and ink had vanished ; the chairs stood 
empty and plump in fresh chintz covers ; the big writing 
table had been dragged to one side and covered with a 
white cloth whereon lay piles of linen, flannel and what 
not, and a spirit lamp and tiny tea service; the fireplace 
was clean and swept empty and a great jug of cool green 
ferns (the people thereabouts called them "brakes") 
stood in it, like our sunflowers at home; there was no 
clothing in sight, and the bed fairly twinkled in crisp, 
snowy curtains and rufflings, while from a sea of white 
linen under its canopy, a dark head emerged. 

A wholesome, pungent odour filled the room, and I 
knew it was that of a certain toilet vinegar which Nana 
compounded with herbs and spices and carried with her 
when she went out nursing ; I was very fond of it. Nana 
herself sat in a low chair on the other side of the bed and 
in order to reach her I had to pass by the white bolster 
with the dark head on it. 

"Is this the little boy?" a pleasant, low voice came 
from the pillows, and I could no more believe that the 
gentle, placid lady that lay there, pale and smiling kindly, 
was the crimson, staring creature I had seen there, than 
that this clean, quiet, sweet-smelling room was the fever- 
ish, cluttered place I had peered across a few hours ago. 

"Come to Nana, deary are you hungry ? I'll warrant 
you are. Go softly down the stairs, lambie, and ask the 
black woman there in the kitchen to give you a bowl of 
that grand rich broth she was at when we came. Poor 
soul, she's made enough for the parish, all overwrought 

52 



I INTRODUCE CHRISSY 

as she was! And you can crumb your bread in it 

Don't you want to see the baby, deary, before you go? 
It's a lovely little girl, as fine and strong as can be 
just a perfect child! Come and see the little darling!" 
A great red ray of the dropping sun struck across her 
chair and enveloped all that peaceful room with a rich 
glow. Cow bells jangled somewhere in the distance and 
the fresh muslin curtains swayed in the little sunset 
breeze. Nana's foot beat softly, rhythmically on the 
floor and she burst again into soft humming. 

"O the oak and the ash and the bonny ivy-tree" 

I can close my eyes and see it now. . . . 

Then I noticed that Nana held a flannel bundle in her 
arms as she swayed and crooned held it with that won- 
derful passion of protecting curves which you may see 
alike in the gutter child cradling a dressed clothes-pin 
and Raphael's Sistine Mother embracing her treasure. 
Black and white, old and young, maid and wife, they 
turn the same eyes on you, just lifted from that curved 
arm; I think the glance has never changed since Eve 
first fed her eyes on Cain and then swept the world with 
a vision new-washed. So Nana looked at me, though the 
child she held was none of hers nor, indeed, does it need 
to be, O ye army of faithful nurses, from whom many of 
us first learned that look of love and illumination. Ra- 
chels weeping for your children are ye all, one day or 
other, and they go away from you and grow beyond you, 
and you must hide your tears and offer your bruised heart 
at another and yet another cradle. 

Nana pulled me nearer and I saw that in that careful 
bundle a tiny red and wrinkled face was hidden : a face 
immeasurably old, it seemed to me, yet very evidently 
soft and helpless, a breakable, crushable thing that put 

53 



THE INHERITANCE 

one instantly upon one's honour to protect and defend it. 
"Kiss her little hand, precious; she weighs eight 
pounds !" cried Nana jubilantly, yet in a sort of whisper 
and thus it was that I was introduced to Chrissy ! 



CHAPTER VI 

In Which I Take You to a Christening Party 

IT is quite unreasonable, I know, but as a matter of 
fact I don't remember ever questioning the likeli- 
hood of Chrissy's name. And now as I write, the 
years and the shadows of them roll back as the stage 
curtains draw back and loop themselves at the side of 
the scene, and I see myself, a solemn little fellow of 
nearly seven, standing by the font in the little stone 
church and staring with all my eyes at the Professor, 
who held an unaccustomed prayer book close to his near- 
sighted eyes and endeavoured feebly to settle his green 
eye shade over his brow. This he could not do for the 
reason that it was not present on this occasion, Nana 
having removed it, just as he left the house, from its 
perilous perch above his straw sailor hat. Close by him 
stood Aunt Addie, who had readily accepted the office 
of god-mother, sharing this function with the rector's 
wife, a kind-hearted, almost totally deaf creature who 
never made any impression on anybody beyond that of 
always coming apart in back and having to be hooked up ; 
I distinctly recall Aunt Addie's performing that helpful 
duty for her as she stood smiling, with that peculiar 
placid smile of the deaf, the sprawling baby in her arms. 
Nana stood respectfully in the background with a watch- 
ful eye on the Professor, whom she considered her special 
charge ever since their first meeting, ready to arrest him 
in case he should forget his whereabouts (and his why- 

6 55 



THE INHERITANCE 

abouts, if I may coin the word) and leave before the con- 
clusion of the ceremony. The Rev. Mr. Applegate was 
a cheery, ruddy, plump little fellow, who had preached his 
cheery, ruddy little sermons to a handful of the faithful 
and baptized the few babies they added to his flock and 
played whist with the president of the bank and dined 
once a week with the owner of the Banksville Hardware 
Works, for quarter of a century. His was not a popu- 
lous nor a popular parish, and but for the disproportion- 
ately generous gifts from these two or three wealthy 
parishioners he would have been hard put to it to justify 
its existence at all. 

Aunt Addie who had in fifteen years of London 
residence become almost completely Anglicised and had 
honestly returned to her widowed brother from a sense 
of duty only, for she preferred England to America to 
the day of her death was an ardent supporter of the 
Reverend Applegate, and spoke of and to him with a 
deep respect which must have been very pleasing to the 
little man. And as for Nana well, I verily believe that 
to Nana and not at all to the subsequent legacies by 
which St. Matthews' profited and the two new Southern 
families that moved to South Warwick after the war, 
was due the rehabilitation of the little church and its 
gradual growth in importance. It is at present only a 
mission chapel in what is called the "old part" of the 
town : a gymnasium and a free bath and a reading room 
and domestic science laboratory mark sufficiently the 
status of the class to which it ministers, and a new St. 
Matthews', twice as large, with a vested choir and a 
famous boy soprano and stained-glass windows from 
Tiffany, stands at the end of the long, crowded avenue 
that leads to the old Vereker house, now a fresh-air re- 
treat for city waifs. But in the 6o's only three of War- 

56 



I TAKE YOU TO A CHRISTENING 

wick's "first families" embraced what Aunt Addie called 
the Church, and the "decent poor bodies," in Nana's 
phrase, had long fallen away from one of the oldest par- 
ishes in the country when she valiantly mounted a ladder 
and scrubbed its dull windows, broomed the carpet with 
tea leaves, polished the old brasses and actually re-covered 
the pew cushions, in what she called her odd bits of time. 
I don't think she could have been six months in the town 
before a baker's dozen of shame-faced deserters to the 
eight or nine forms of "Dissent" that divided the spir- 
itual allegiance of Warwick found themselves marshalled 
into the rear pews of St. Matthews', and standing sooner 
or later with their various offspring near the clumsy, 
stained marble font, Aunt Addie and the amazed Mrs. 
Applegate placidly renouncing the devil and all his works 
in their innocent offsprings' various behalves. 

Aunt Addie was firmly convinced that she had led the 
prodigals thither and to the infant classes in catechism 
which she found herself conducting later, just as the 
wealthy Miss Fanny Banks undoubtedly supposed herself 
the originator of the Christmas tree, and the almost 
equally wealthy Mrs. Levi Bragg would have died at 
the stake defending her responsibility for the afterward 
famous quartette choir, which actually gave a concert 
at Easter and made eighty dollars, to say nothing of a 
notice in the New York paper. And when old Colonel 
Rogers died from his Antietam bullet, finally (its devious 
course through his anatomy was one of the horrid de- 
lights of Warwick infancy) it is quite probable that Miss 
Ellaline Rogers honestly believed the new-fashioned me- 
morial pipe-organ to have been her own idea. At any 
rate she paid the organist's salary and bought all the 
music, and when Bert, nine or ten years later, had the 
organ, and doubled the quartette and gave a full English 

57 



THE INHERITANCE 

choral communion service so well that city summer vis- 
itors filled the church and the offertory plate together, 
she and Bert divided the honours between them. And 
nobody dreamed that that good nurse of Dr. Caldwell's 
who is so delightfully respectful, my dear, and knows 
her place so well, had the remotest connection with the 
Mass in D Flat. Nor that her matter-of-fact suggestion 
that Master Bert should try his hand at the organ, to 
oblige, in the absence of Miss Rogers' man, was the foun- 
dation of the saving occupation that kept the poor, gifted 
lad out of mischief for a whole year. If Nana her- 
self had any idea of the connection she was far too dis- 
creet a person to breathe it, and agreed quietly to all 
the praises of the energetic ladies whose interest and gen- 
erosity had done so much to raise St. Matthews' to its 
proper place. 

Well, we stood at the font (Nana had steadfastly re- 
fused to stand as god-mother, though Mrs. Vereker had 
requested her to, on the ground that her position was 
not suitable to such an office, though grateful for the 
honour, indeed, ma'am, and ever shall be), and Aunt 
Addie, even while deprecating her attitude, felt secretly 
relieved, any one could see. 

"For as you can quite understand, Mrs. Applegate," 
she said to the rector's wife in the piercing tones required 
by that lady's deafness, so that I, who was building 
houses of bricks with Gary, at the time, in the adjacent 
dining-room, heard her plainly, "it really would be a little 
odd. Not even a foster mother, you see, as in Hughie's 
case, and after all, extraordinary as Mrs. Vereker may 
be, she was a St. Aubyn, you know, and it can't be got- 
ten over. It would hardly be proper for a child's nurse, 
no matter how good the child's own family may be, to 
stand up for Major St. Aubyn's granddaughter." 

58 



I TAKE YOU TO A CHRISTENING 

"I suppose not," said Mrs. Applegate. 

"No. To say nothing of the Professor, who stands 
very well, I am told, by my friends in London. I wrote 
directly I found out about them, and Bishop Vereker was 
his great-uncle. His father afterward went over to 
Rome, I'm sorry to say. And yet with all that religion 
in the family, he never has entered a church since he 
was married ! Fancy it !" 

"Dear me," said Mrs. Applegate, "they are certainly 
very strange." 

And they were strange. Even as a child of six I knew 
that they were strange. When I went up to the Verekers' 
with Nana to see how the lady was getting on, and was 
ushered upstairs into the book-filled bedroom to confront 
Mrs. Vereker nursing her infant with one hand, as it 
were, and writing with the other, an abstracted stare on 
her sweet, sallow face, a quill pen hovering over the 
big, untidy inkstand, I realized that such was not the 
custom of her sex in general. Even in that dingy London 
court that was never mentioned between Nana and me 
since we were quit of it, the busiest drudges devoted their 
entire attention for the moment to this maternal function. 
I had often seen them. Nor was she any more engrossed 
with her own nourishment, which was invariably carried 
to her desk on a tray; a large volume stood propped 
before her as she ate, and oftener than not the food grew 
cold and glazed while she turned the pages. During 
whole days after Chrissy's arrival she read lying flat in 
her bed, the younger mulattress kneeling beside her and 
holding the heavy book at a proper angle for hours to- 
gether without a word or movement. 

The knowledge that beyond the wall sat the Professor 
reading from his book propped in front of his tray af- 
fected me strongly : I used often to creep from one room 

59 



THE INHERITANCE 

to the other in order to peer at them as they sat there 
image-like, utterly solitary, utterly content. The only 
difference in their methods of life was that the Professor 
took a regular constitutional between the barn and the 
house once a day, irrespective of every form of weather 
but heavy snow drifts, while his wife never was known 
to leave her room except to superintend the clearing out 
of the used books and the introduction of new into their 
places. At the time of my entry into Warwick they filled 
only the two living-floors: when we sold them, finally, 
the attic and the cellar were packed with them. 

She was generally supposed, in later years, by the few 
who came to know her, to be excessively learned. I 
never knew if she were or not. Certainly nothing in her 
manner of conversation ever indicated it. The Doctor al- 
ways insisted that she was a victim to bibliomania, and 
was addicted to print precisely as any of her fellow 
victims to drugs or alcohol. He told me years after- 
wards that he doubted if she could live a week if she 
should ever go blind. 

The Professor was an Egyptologist, and usually sup- 
posed by his readers and fellow students to spend most 
of his time in close study of that country, which he had 
never viewed from any nearer point than the British Mu- 
seum. But I have been told that he possessed a singular 
faculty for rehabilitating all that ancient life and pictur- 
ing for his readers the most vivid conceptions of its vari- 
ous ethnological, geographical and historical changes. 
He certainly knew little enough of the country he had 
adopted. He had come from New York directly to War- 
wick, established himself, his books and his little house- 
hold in the farmhouse left him by his uncle (who had 
taken the property for a debt and never seen it) and so 

60 



I TAKE YOU TO A CHRISTENING 

far as anybody knew, never left it until he followed Nana 
meekly to his daughter's baptism. 

"I think he knows the blessed lamb's not being prom- 
ised for into any of that heathenry he's always mulling 
over I give him that," Nana confided to me, "but more 
than that much I'll warrant you, no!" 

And to tell the truth I think the ritual of the Book of 
the Dead, whose great bird-headed gods were one of the 
terrors of my childhood, would have been vastly more 
familiar to Professor Vereker than the service he was 
now following. 

The sun filtered through the painted glass presentment 
of a most unconvincing Moses, engaged, apparently, in 
a badly aimed attempt to bash the tribes out of existence 
with the Tables of the Law, and shining into Chrissy's 
eyes caused her to sneeze violently. Mrs. Applegate, who 
was sensitive, as the deaf always are, to vibration, jumped 
as the baby's convulsion startled her and threw herself 
backward toward the Professor. He, startled in his turn 
out of some Egyptian dream, caught his breath suddenly 
and woke to his surroundings just as the little rector, 
eying him somewhat sternly, said in his close-clipped, 
busy little way: 

"Name this child." 

The Professor stared helplessly at him, then, at Nana, 
but Nana, ordinarily ready for any emergency, was 
twitching with impatience at the baby's sneeze, vexed be- 
yond bearing almost, at Mrs. Applegate's fecklessness in 
not standing out of the guilty ray of sunlight, and was 
for the moment quite off her guard. 

"Name this child!" Mr. Applegate repeated, more 
crisply than ever, fixing his keen little grey eye upon the 
Professor. 

61 



THE INHERITANCE 

Professor Vereker straightened himself unconsciously 
and stood like one of his own slim priests of Isis. 

"Christopher Vane Vereker !" he pronounced, loud and 
clear, with a sort of thrill of family pride, I make no 
doubt, as the good old name rang out, and a dim sense 
of all the honest Verekers planted for generations around 
the Lincoln Fens, to whose numbers, depleted by centu- 
ries of malaria from those same miasmatic Fens, he had 
added a new recruit, a healthy suckling, a fresh reach 
into a future dark as the interior of any of his pyramids. 

Mrs. Applegate smiled, Aunt Addie, who had sneezed 
sympathetically with the baby, and was still confused with 
the indignity of the explosion, heard only the last two 
names, and Nana, overcome with horror, had only time 
to clear her throat before Mr. Applegate continued 
briskly : 

"Christopher Vane, I baptise thee in the name of the 
Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. . . ." 

The Professor was back in his dream again : so far as 
he was concerned Mr. Applegate might as well have bap- 
tised his daughter in the name of Ra and of Nu and of 
the Sacred Nile, I am quite certain. The latter trinity 
was certainly far more familiar to his mind than the 
former. 

What passed through Aunt Addie's scandalised mind 
no one was ever able to discover, so involved did she in- 
variably become when enlarging upon this theme. It is 
probable that she was immediately engaged in schemes 
for changing the poor child's sex to accord with a sacred 
rite, for long years of intimacy with Aunt Addie have 
accustomed me to the reading of her mental processes, 
and this was quite along her usual lines of ratiocination. 

As for Nana, she frankly admitted afterward that her 
knees went together so that it took all she knew to keep 

62 



I TAKE YOU TO A CHRISTENING 

them tip, and aside from the irreverence of interrupting 
a church service and contradicting her rector, of which 
course she had grave doubts as to the validity, under any 
circumstances, she couldn't have done anything to save 
her life, not if it had been ever so. 

As for Chrissy, she didn't care at all, naturally, and 
would have sneezed neither more nor less if she had been 
baptized Rameses or Pharaoh Meneptah. 

As for me, I considered Christopher Vane Vereker 
to be a fine-sounding mouthful of a name, and felt that 
I had never known the Professor to look so grand as 
when he stood straight and shouted it out so loud. 

Nana, for the only time in her life, so far as I know, 
deserted a cause and fled incontinently from the church, 
talking to herself and red as a turkey cock, and Aunt 
Addie, disgusted with her pusillanimity and too scared 
to better it, sailed angrily out after her, leaving the mulat- 
tress, Diana, who stood meekly outside in the vestibule, 
to bundle the outraged and recently endued Christian 
home. 

Afterwards, when it all came out, and while the little 
rector was debating with Aunt Addie as to laying the 
matter before his bishop and Nana was swimming in apol- 
ogies and trying to take the whole tragedy on her broad, 
accustomed shoulders, the Professor stopped all further 
discussion by remarking quietly that he was well enough 
satisfied with the name as it was, that he could not see 
that this particular combination of vowels and consonants 
was any the less desirable for being applied a little out 
of its ordinary course, and that he preferred to hear no 
more of it, as he could not possibly spare the time to upset 
another morning by going to the church again. Nobody 
ever learned Mrs. Vereker's opinion for the reason that 
she never gave it, nor am I at all sure that her attention 

63 



THE INHERITANCE 

was ever sufficiently caught by the affair to warrant her 
forming any. 

Nor do I ever expect to see the day when any name 
known to the calendar shall sound to me so loving and 
lovable, so friendly and honest, and all that there is of 
womanly, as Chrissy's! 



CHAPTER VII 

In Which I Begin My Education 

A DAY or two ago the Powers that Be in my house 
gave warning that the study was to be turned 
out, and I was requested, in those gentle tones 
of forbearance that spell (to the initiated) instant sub- 
mission and no quarter, to empty out my desk, and par- 
ticularly those old drawers at the 'way back. Shrouded 
in the dense gloom that must inevitably characterise all 
such occasions (for what harm, I ask you, could be sup- 
posed to lurk in those innocent drawers at the 'way 
back?) I approached the task, and like many a devoted 
martyr before me, reaped an unexpected reward, for 
there tumbled out, thick with dust and creased to the 
breaking point, a half score old manila envelopes, and 
from them I drew out, as a woman draws out old gar- 
ments scented with the attar of roses of half a lifetime, 
such quaint old records of a childish past as I had sup- 
posed long forgotten, beyond any power of yellowed pa- 
pers and tarnished metal to recall. 

And lo, it was not forgotten, nor vanished, nor dead, 
but vivid and living with me, and touching beyond any 
power of mine to bring before you. The years between 
rolled back like the smoke of my pipe, that went out un- 
heeded between my teeth, as I turned over those hints 
and scraps of yesterday, and that foolish concession we 
call Time flew out of the study window with the blue 
smoke rings. 
Monthly Report of Hughie Gordon, Scholarship, De- 

65 



THE INHERITANCE 

portment and Morals, was written in a crabbed, pains- 
taking hand on the outside of a thin and obviously home- 
made pamphlet, basted neatly together out of thin, glazed 
wrapping paper. It was signed Hetty Lavinia Parrott, 
and as I read it I was six years old again, and trotting 
along with Bert and Gary to old Mrs. Parrott's Private 
School for Young Children of Both Sexes. There were 
no kindergartens then, and no one had discovered the 
inestimable value of modelling clay and twisted tissue 
paper in the development of infancy. So we carried a 
red-bound slate, a First Reader, conservatively covered 
with chocolate-coloured muslin, and a substantial luncheon 
basket with a fringed red napkin dribbling out below the 
cover. These three articles were considered to occupy 
quite sufficiently our hands, our brains and our stomachs, 
and so far as I can remember this simple faith was quite 
justified. 

Old Mrs. Parrott ! I say old, for old she appeared to 
us then ; I suppose she was no more middle aged than the 
possession of two grown daughters would warrant. She 
was plump and brown and altogether robin-like, with 
kindly, twinkling eyes and a strong sense of order and 
despatch : it never occurred to me to doubt for a moment 
that she was called Parrott because of the cross-grained 
pink-and-grey bird that swung in a (necessarily) strong 
iron cage under a cherry tree in summer weather and in 
the south window of the dining-room in winter. We 
went to school in the dining-room, that always smelled 
comfortingly of coffee and buttered rusk, and we began 
the exercises of the day in the following manner. 

"Bibles, Hughie!" Mrs. Parrott would chirrup to me, 
and I would bring, two by two, puffing and blowing, for 
they were very heavy, armfuls of large, yellow calf-bound 
Bibles. In spite of their size (and they were like small 

66 



I BEGIN MY EDUCATION 

dictionaries) their print was not particularly coarse, for 
we had no fine India paper, limp-leaved, map-filled de 
luxe Bibles in those days, and we bent over them and 
traced the words with our ringers, painfully in poor 
Gary's case, tearfully, in all our cases, with an absolute 
lack of appreciation of what we were reading about. 
After I had slammed the books down in front of each 
of the half dozen or so students (and it is a triumph to 
Mrs. Parrott's character and system that I was deeply 
sensible of the honour of this position of Bible bringer, 
though as a matter of fact it tired me and I often pinched 
my finger between the table and Carroll Lee's Bible, which 
was the biggest and heaviest) we opened them with a 
vast deal of shuffling and swishing of leaves and any 
amount of assistance from Mrs. Parrott, and intoned each 
a verse of one of the Psalms, turn about. 

"Lift-up-your-heads-O-ye-gates-and-the-King-of-glory- 
shall-come-in." 

"Very good, very good, Fanny. Now, Bert !" 

"Who - is-this-King-of-glory? The-Lord-strong-and- 
mish-ty-the-Lord " 

("Mighty, Bert, mighty.") 

"Mi-tey-the-Lord-mish-ty " 

("Mighty!") 

"Mi-tey-in-bat-tle?" 

"Drop your voice, Bert. That is a full stop." 

"Oh bat-tit !" 

"There, there, Bert! More control, more control! 
Now, Gary, dear, and remember not to read out the 
'Selah'." 

("I dare you to read it, Gary!") 

"Hush, Bert, hush! Now, Gary! Don't be fright- 
ened; there's a good boy! And take your thumb out. 
And don't say 'Selah,' will you ?" 

67 



THE INHERITANCE 

But poor Gary was frightened, and didn't take his 
thumb out and did read "Selah" after all! 

Here is a small printed paper, much folded, that turns 
out to be a blotted piano score, copied in violet ink, with 
the rests much too big in proportion for the eighths and 
quarters. The Carnival of Venice is printed at the top, 
and those four words alone seem positively to fill my 
nostrils with a scent that surely was never compounded 
in my study. But I sniff again and again, and actually 
draw in breaths of Miss Susy Farwell's parlour, where 
once a week I took my music lesson, sandwiched be- 
tween Bert and Gary, who preceded and followed me 
respectively. Miss Susy's parlour was small and dim and 
full of all manner of things much more interesting than 
the old square piano : her hallway smelled of seed cookies 
and oilcloth, but the parlour had a vanilla bean in it, some- 
where, and a stuffed pheasant, always called Walter by 
us, for some reason I have forgotten, and Walter was 
not what he had been, and was always in moulting sea- 
son. There was a charming engraving of a little bare- 
footed girl starting off for the beach with her pail and 
shovel, called "Going to Work," and a "what-not" fitted 
into the corner, with diminishing triangular shelves 
loaded with shells and small, carved wooden animals and 
the Lord's Prayer on ivory, very tiny, to be looked at 
under a magnifying glass, and a bunch of wax flowers 
under a glass bell, that added to the curious mixture of 
odours the Carnival of Venice spells for me. 

Miss Susy had knotted, wrinkled fingers, and the yel- 
low, tinkling keys of her old piano (she called it a piano- 
forte) clicked strangely when one pounded out the Car- 
nival. The green shutters were always closely drawn, 
and a sort of filtered, yellow light lay over everything 
and left the corners dusky and mysterious. It seems to 

68 



I BEGIN MY EDUCATION 

have been always very warm when I took my lessons, 
for I recall Miss Susy as always in a loose, white sacque, 
waving a palm leaf fan and wiping her brownish fore- 
head. As always, in our trio, I did passably well and 
gave comparatively little trouble, Bert did very well and 
gave a great deal, and Gary sucked his thumb and cried 
and had to be pacified with seed cakes. I was supposed 
to practice half an hour a day on the Doctor's piano, and 
as the half hour selected for me came directly after the 
middle-day dinner, and I invariably played all the after- 
noon there, it was the most natural thing in the world for 
me to have dinner with them, three days out of four, 
especially when the Doctor had set Nana on some nursing 
case and there would be no one to look after me at our 
cottage. As a matter of fact, there were weeks on end 
when I lived there, and "Master Hughie's room" had 
always been kept ready for me since our first visit. 

When my London clothes wore out, Aunt Addie her- 
self suggested getting mine made with the others, while 
the woman was at it for a gnarly, bad-tempered little 
tailoress still made boys' clothes at that date in South 
Warwick and I well remember Nana's unconcealable 
surprise when Miss Tucker sat down to the table with 
us. She herself, at the Doctor's suggestion, ate in the 
dining-room after we had finished, in order to establish 
some kind of precedent to be followed by her other 
patrons, for I do not believe that there was such a thing 
as a servants' dining-room in the community. (Nana 
still absentmindedly asked Aunt Addie, "and the corned 
beef for the 'hall,' Miss Caldwell, I suppose?" in cater- 
ing for us, though no human being but Aunt Addie knew 
that she meant the servants' hall.) She was, as a mat- 
ter of course, except in those establishments that "sent 
up a tray," expected to eat with the family, but stead- 

69 



THE INHERITANCE 

fastly refused to do this, and so the Doctor's plan was 
evolved as a decent compromise. 

"I've set the sempstress's place with mine, Miss Cald- 
well," she announced, on the first day of Miss Tucker's 
semi-annual visitation, and I can see the drop of her 
honest jaw now at Aunt Addie's unrestrained horror. 

"Gracious, Mrs. False, put her with the rest of us, or 
she'll walk out of the door without opening her scis- 
sors !" cried Aunt Addie. "She's proud as Lucifer, and 
we'd never get her again she always eats with the 
family!" 

Nana never could grasp the curious social distinctions 
of the States, and on this occasion, I remember, poured 
out her feelings to me, as she tidied me for dinner. 

"It's not as if she was one to make her call in the draw- 
ing-room with the ladies, regular-like would I say a 
word, then? But slinking in at the side entry, and her 
bonnet and shawl on the pegs for your school clothes, 
and her bundle under her arm ! How was I to know, I 
ask you? And her own sister cashier at the draper's 
my word, but I'm sorry for Miss Caldwell, and her used 
to a sensible country! Let me know where I stand, 
is all I ask. There, now, Master Hugh, you're all tidied, 
and mind, now, none of that horrid ice in your water. 
I'll not have your vitals chilled out of you. The Doctor'll 
get his mutton underdone, for once, tell him from me, 
if you're sitting next him. I cooked it myself. This 
stewing good mutton to a dishclout is more than I can 
bear." 

Dear, dear, how long ago it was ! 

"It's only the Doctor's boys," people would call to each 
other, as we raced through their "backyards," hooting 
and screeching, for Rob and Hux were at the noisy age 
and very healthy. Nana dreaded these trips, through 

70 



I BEGIN MY EDUCATION 

the noon heats, and would always put up packets of 
luncheon for us, urging us to lie in the shade and eat 
slowly ; such delectable luncheon packets ! I can taste 
her sandwiches now, of cold mutton, liberally sprinkled 
with celery salt, for which condiment I had a passionate 
preference, and certain little tarts or "turnovers," as 
they were called, made of dried apples flavoured with 
lemon peel and kept, moist and flaky, in a cool stone 
crock. Hux was a bit of a gourmand, in his quiet, heavy 
way, and most of his allowance went for root beer, sold 
at a little notion and newspaper shop near us, a certain 
kind of cough-candy flavoured with anise, to which he 
was much addicted, and the nuts which I learned at that 
period to call "English walnuts." These dainties he 
would add to the luncheons, and there was a definite 
though not codified understanding that we were not to 
accept his hospitality too liberally. Whenever I dine at 
his house now and enjoy his jellied consomme, his soft 
crabs and his especial Burgundy (a trifle beyond a strictly 
proportionate adjustment of the income of even the vice- 
president of the bank, Mrs. Robert thinks) I recall with 
a chuckle those picnic luncheons at Millpond swimming 
hole, and I can't see that old Hux has changed very 
much. 

Which parent did they resemble? Certainly not the 
Doctor, unless Rob's cool detachment came from him. 
But Bert was not a bit like his father, and it is incon- 
ceivable that a mother unable to impress herself on any- 
body's memory could have given that poor, unhappy, 
gifted fellow the brilliant capacities he was so little able 
to balance. As for poor little Gary, he was like any other 
naturally sweet-tempered child whom a chronic weak- 
ness frets and disables. Had I the care of the boy now 
I should know that I was treating that dread foe of fam- 
6 71 



THE INHERITANCE 

ilies, infantile paralysis, and in the light of my present 
experience should wonder that the poor little fellow 
dragged his limping leg about for as many years as he 
did. But in the late sixties we knew less of the treat- 
ment of children than we know to-day. God sent them 
and God took them, our patients said. I can't but feel 
that those who scold so portentously because our present- 
day parents seem inclined to doubt the first proposition, 
forget that we have taught them to doubt equally the last, 
thereby reducing enormously the infantile death rate ! 

So Gary had his "bad days" and his "good days," and 
we dragged him in his little cart through the one and 
walked slowly, to allow him to keep up, through the 
other; and because he longed for the fresh air all the 
time and lived in it all day, and because Nana super- 
vised his food more or less and kept him as much as 
she could on porridge and fresh eggs and vegetables, we 
doubled, I believe now, his short span of life. 

He even took his turn at the public school with us, 
when, at about eight, I fancy, Mrs. Parrott's system 
proved scarcely strenuous enough, and we three younger 
ones followed Rob and Hux into old "Number Six," 
where Miss Emily Washburn, fat and friendly, but pos- 
sessed of an almost superhuman knowledge of the human 
heart, took us, our marbles, our smudgy slates and our 
"McGuffey's Readers" in hand. In the light of *he 
unspeakably filthy rags with which we sedulously cleaned 
those grimy slates, applying them to our mouths when 
the doubtful water went dry in our bottles (officially 
employed to the exclusion of nature's method), I am in- 
clined to suspect the entire validity of the germ theory. 
Virchow and Pasteur would have lacked many of their 
present students had those germs been quite so black as 
they are painted nowadays ! 

72 



I BEGIN MY EDUCATION 

The public school (or schools, for there are at least 
five of them now) was a very different affair in those 
days. I doubt if Miss Emily Washburn had ever studied 
psychology in any other textbooks than those provided 
for her by her Maker, and I am certain that she knew 
nothing of folk-dancing, brass pounding, nature study, 
basketry or cabinet making; and yet, with all these dis- 
advantages, Miss Emily, strange as it may seem, was 
really a good teacher. True, she did not deal with the 
miscellaneous mass of humanity that I survey when, in my 
capacity of inspector, I sit solemnly on the platform of 
the new "Number Six." There was not an Italian child 
in our school, not a Pole, not a Slav nor Hungarian, nor 
even, I believe, a Russian Jew. Such few of the Chosen 
People as were among us had scarcely a trace of foreign 
accent, and used the same idioms as we did. The curi- 
ous jargon which began to be exploited as theirs, on the 
stage in the eighties and in fiction a decade later, was 
unheard of among us, and Abey Fox was only noticeable 
for being cleverer than the rest of us, and for the dis- 
qualifying fact that his father owned a liquor saloon. 
Miss Emily, who was a strict Methodist and who failed 
to teach folk-dancing for quite other reasons than her 
ignorance of the art, had persuaded Abey into "signing 
the pledge" early in his career, and had high hopes of his 
razing the saloon to the ground at such time as he should 
succeed to the paternal property. She often talked to 
us of the great day when all that beer and rum and wine 
should pour down the gutters of Main street, and we 
looked forward to it eagerly ; I am not sure that I must 
not date a certain creeping, insidious maturity to my first 
suspicions that Abey would never do this, and that Fox 
and Son would probably replace the gilded A. Fox that 
now adorned the entrance to Miss Emily's pet Inferno. 

73 



THE INHERITANCE 

No, those of us who were not of English stock were 
of Irish, in those days, with here and there a friendly 
blond German; and a paternal government was not 
obliged to wash us, nor to examine our teeth and our 
hair, nor to teach us to tell the truth and tell it in the 
Queen's English, nor to barricade our teachers from the 
onslaughts of infuriated South European maternity, while 
we were being vaccinated by the board of health. All 
these things were attended to at home, and Miss Emily 
came to tea with our mothers and boarded with our aunts 
and was assistant superintendent of the Sunday school 
under our uncles. 

Heavens, how we spelled and parsed and spelled again ! 
By the time we had parsed through "The curfew tolls 
the knell of parting day," under Miss Etta Marvin, as 
tall and acid as Miss Etnily had been plump and jolly, 
and come to Milton's Paradise Lost, as we always called 
it, under Miss Lida Pierson, who had studied at Mt. 
Holyoke Seminary and knew Latin, I believe we could 
have spelled anything in reason in the English lan- 
guage. Bert was a famous speller, and on Fri- 
day afternoons, when we chose sides and had 
matches, I was proud to stand beside him and win 
the day with him against Fanny Pratt and her embattled 
Amazons. 

We must have been about twelve, then, and Rob and 
Hux two or three years older. They were a dictatorial, 
managing pair, and didn't get on very well with their 
school equals, so they were better satisfied to lead a troop 
of younger lads, whom they drilled and disciplined in 
comparative peace. This confined them to our immedi- 
ate neighbourhood, which was sparsely settled then, and 
resulted in a somewhat curious social situation, which 
would have continued indefinitely, I am convinced, had 

74 



I BEGIN MY EDUCATION 

it not been suddenly and completely altered, in the fol- 
lowing manner. 

On the evening of my twelfth birthday, which had been 
marked by a picnic and swim at the beach, to which Nana 
had brought little Chrissy Vereker, as she had never seen 
salt water, and Bert and I had fought for the pleasure of 
teaching her to swim, so that his nose bled all over my 
bathing suit on this evening I was led by Nana, both of 
us in our best and rather stiff, accordingly, to the Doc- 
tor's office, by previous appointment, evidently, as he was 
alone, free, and distinctly interested. 

"Well, Mrs. False?" he said, motioning Nana to a 
chair, which to my surprise she took, for she never sat 
before him. 

"Yes, sir, thank you, and I will, with all respect, for 
I'm a kttle worried in my mind, Doctor, and that always 
goes to my legs, if I may say oO," she began. "It's about 
Master Hugh I'm come, Doctor." 

"What ? No mischief, surely ?" and he looked search- 
ingly at me. If any one had told him that he definitely 
regarded himself as my guardian by now, and would 
have held himself responsible for any serious breach of 
mine as much as in the case of any of the boys, he might 
have denied it, but I am not sure it would not have been 
true. 

"Oh, no, sir," with a thankful pat for me, "Hughie's 
always been all I could wish, Doctor. It's not that. But 
I'm not entirely satisfied with his schooling, sir, and 
that's the truth." 

"No? Why, what's wrong? Reports bad?" 

"Oh, no, sir. But Master Hugh is twelve years of age, 
Dr. Caldwell, and I can't think it's right as he should be 
under the women so much. It don't seem natural to me, 
somehow. Surely, when he goes to the university, it 

75 



THE INHERITANCE 

won't be women, Doctor? And oughtn't he to be doing 
Latin and Greek? He seems to study no languages at 
all, and all will be to do when he's older." 

"I see," said the Doctor, and looked at me curiously, 
then at her. 

"You want him brought up like the English lads, then?" 

"I'm not saying that, Doctor, but it don't seem right 
to me that a young gentleman should know no more than 
the butcher's girls that he's at school with !" 

"Come, come, Mrs. False, this is a free country you've 
come to, you know ! We're each as good as his neigh- 
bour!" 

"Yes, sir, but but there's other schools to be had, 
aren't there, Doctor?" 

"Why, certainly. You don't think that what's good 
enough for my boys is good enough for Hugh, then ?" 

"I don't say that, sir." 

"Perhaps you think the public school is not good 
enough for the boys ?" 

Nana creased her black skirt silently for a moment, 
then spoke suddenly: 

"Doctor, who are Master Rob's and Master Huxley's 
friends?" 

"Who? Who?" he repeated, staring at her. "Why, 
the boys of the neighbourhood, I suppose. Aren't they 
decent, respectable lads enough ? I don't know them by 
name . . . I'm very busy ..." 

"I know it, Dr. Caldwell, and that's why I make bold 
to speak, for, of course, Miss Caldwell is poorly, and 
can't be expected to know such things. But it don't seem 
right to me that the young gentlemen should never be 
amongst those of their own age, sir, and always bullying 
the sort of little fellows that's around here. I've naught 
against the O'Shaugnessy woman nor the fishmonger's 

76 



I BEGIN MY EDUCATION 

twins near the pond nor the livery stable children over 
beyond our pasture, Doctor, but I can't see that it's so 
free-and-equal, when Master Rob lords it over them 
so. They're gentlefolk, sir, and the others are not, put it 
how you may, and I don't like the words Master Bert 
picks up from those livery stable boys, and neither would 
you, sir. And unless you disapprove, Doctor, I'd wish to 
put Master Hugh to the academy on the hill." 

"Dr. Crane's, you mean?" 

"Yes, sir." 

"Hugh can afford it, I suppose?" 

"Oh, yes, sir." 

"Use your own judgment, of course," he said shortly, 
and whirled about in his chair, and we sat in silence, un- 
comfortably. 

Presently, however, he whirled back again and held out 
his hand. 

"You're right, perhaps, Mrs. False," he said in his old 
voice, "and I suppose I've been negligent. If their 
mother had lived. . . ." 

"I know, sir, I know!" 

"I haven't a moment, myself, and so long as they were 
healthy and honest. . . ." 

"Yes, sir, of course. And I know 'tis different over 
here. But there's forty boys in the academy, Doctor, 
and and " 

"And they're Americans, too, you mean, and I can 
afford it?" 

"Yes, sir, just so, sir, if you thought best." 

"Of course, you know, I don't admit that our public 
schools " 

"No, indeed, sir, and when they were younger it was 
different, of course. But for young lads of fifteen to be 
under a woman I can't make it seem right, Doctor." 

77 



THE INHERITANCE 

"I always meant to have some one, perhaps Dr. Apple- 
gate, get the older boys ready for college I didn't realize 
they were growing so . . ." he said, half to himself. 

"No, sir, I thought not. And Master Bert not that 
he's not good at heart, but he'll be needing a strong 
hand, Doctor, you'll find, before long. That Miss Pier- 
son's no match for him, I can tell you. He's by far 
too much around the stable, sir, for a young gentleman, 
and I doubt you know the words he'll let out when he's 
angry. It's not to be expected that Miss Caldwell " 

"No, no, of course not. I'll see Dr. Crane to-morrow." 

"Thank you, sir. And if clothes are to be provided 
any ways different, Doctor " 

"Oh, Miss Caldwell will get them all together," he said 
carelessly. "How do you feel about this, Hugh ? Should 
you like to desert Bert and Cary and go off to be an 
aristocrat on the hill, eh?" 

"Oh, no, please not !" I cried ; "send them, too, Doctor, 
and then we can play ball ! Our nine sent a challenge to 
the Crane middle-size fellows, and they said they didn't 
play with Publics." 

"Poppy-cock !" he exploded furiously, but he reddened, 
and we saw it. 

He called on Dr. Crane the next afternoon, and we, 
in our best and quite astounded at the suddenness of all 
this, went too, Cary and I with him in the stanhope, 
and the other three driven by Thomas and the pair in 
the surrey. As we all got out, we had the satisfaction of 
hearing envious comments on the parts of the proud 
wearers of the uniform of the Crane Academy ball nine, 
and knew they were deserved, for whatever might be Dr. 
Caldwell's laxities of establishment, they were not in the 
matter of horse flesh. 

Dr. Crane was delighted to see us, and said so frankly. 

78 



I BEGIN MY EDUCATION 

"A fine showing, Caldwell, a fine showing!" he said 
warmly. "I have long felt that you owed me these boys, 
you know !" 

And we knew that this pleased the Doctor. 

A long consultation between Aunt Addie and Nana, 
who had nursed in many houses on the hill, filled the 
morning that we spent in getting our books from the 
desks that already seemed less desirable to us, and the 
next day we went in a body to New York and were 
fitted out, top to toe, with the approved wardrobe of 
Crane's Academy, Rob and Hux in their first long 
trousers. We dined at a restaurant famous for its sea 
food and ate great dishes of French ice cream, and Aunt 
Addie, who was delighted with the change she had long 
wanted to make and never been able to achieve, gave us 
each a five dollar bill for a commemorative present. We 
spent it, I recall, most characteristically: Rob reserving 
all but the price of a bat and ball for his bank, Hux suc- 
cumbing to crystallized ginger, chocolat menier and a 
book of Scotch ballads, Bert going to the theatre by him- 
self, Cary undecided as to his purchases and fractious 
from the uncertainty, I wishing to take Nana to Eden 
Musee, so as to remind her of Madame Tussaud's wax- 
works in London, which she had often described to 
me. 

When we marshalled, defiant in our new clothes, in 
Dr. Crane's library, and he brought in assorted boys to 
meet us, we were not surprised to hear ourselves de- 
scribed as "Dr. Caldwell's five boys, young gentlemen, 
whom I am sure you will be delighted to welcome among 
you. Robert, Huxley, Albert, Cary and Hugh Caldwell. 
Shake hands, boys." 

"I'm I'm Hugh Gordon, sir," I faltered, horrified at 
such prominence among so many strangers. 

79 



THE INHERITANCE 

"Ah ! I had understood that you were one of the Doc- 
tor's household," said Dr. Crane doubtfully. 

"He is. He lives with us mostly," Hux explained 
bluntly. 

"He's English, really," Bert added ; "father's his 

"Oh, I see; your father is his guardian. Ah, yes, I 
understood some time ago that Miss Adeline Caldwell 
was interested . . . ah, yes," the doctor boomed cheer- 
fully on. "Yes, yes. Well, we are all brothers together 
here, young gentlemen," and we shook hands sheepishly 
and went out to the morning recess. 

The day after we had solemnly burned all our school- 
books used in any other institution (a sacred rite peculiar 
to Crane Academy; the magnificent and unusual blaze 
resulting from some thirty volumes gave us a fine start- 
off!) and installed each our new set in our private, var- 
nished, hinged-top desks such a contrast to the nicked, 
worn, double-seated affairs of the "Public," we were as 
far in spirit from the dingy old brick building on West 
Main Street as the very baseball captain himself, who 
had been at Crane's since he was eight. 

What with Rob's and Huxley's long trousers and the 
awe-inspiring school caps of us little ones, we seemed, 
undoubtedly, to the fish-monger's twins, et aL, like beings 
ravished away into another sphere, and we literally never 
played with them again, to the best of my memory. 

When I recall that up to this time we had literally no 
intimate acquaintance among what may fairly be called 
our own class in South Warwick (though the Doctor was 
known everywhere and Aunt Addie made and received 
many languid, yearly calls of ceremony), and when I add 
that Rob married the sister of an intimate classmate at 
Crane's, that Hux went into the bank through the father 
of his best friend there, that Bert was at one time beyond 

80 



I BEGIN MY EDUCATION 

a doubt the most popular young man of his age in the 
town, on the hill and off, and that my whole life was 
greatly shaped by my having been with them there you 
won't wonder that I consider Nana's conversation with 
the Doctor that evening to have been more than common 
interesting ! 



CHAPTER VIII 

In Which You May Renew Your Acquaintance 
with Chrissy 

WHEN Chrissy (as she often did, in later life, I 
fear) shocked the ladies of South Warwick, I 
am told they would look meaningly at one an- 
other and say, "But what could you expect, my dear, 
brought up as she was ?" 

As a matter of fact, Chrissy never was "brought" up ; 
she came up of her own accord. There was no one to 
"bring" her, to begin with. Certainly no human being 
in his or her senses could have supposed Mrs. Vereker 
capable of bringing anybody or anything up or down. 
The Professor, indeed, became obsessed from time to time 
by various educational nightmares, which Nana, who 
made a point of dropping in on that curious household at 
more or less regular intervals, described with various 
degrees of horror to Aunt Addie. 

The first two years of the child's life were passed in 
a large clothes hamper. She was a big, strong infant, 
Nana says, as placid and healthy as if she had derived 
her sustenance from what Mr. Micawber would have 
called the maternal font of an active milkmaid, braced 
with air and dew and hearty labour in the open. "By con- 
trary," as Nana used to say, "that Mrs. Vereker never 
moves from one fortnight to the next, and as for the 
messes those yellow women stew up for her, how they 
ever made Christian milk for ten months is more than I 
or any other sensible body can see !" 

82 



YOU RENEW ACQUAINTANCE 

It was at Nana's suggestion that the clothes hamper 
was procured, and for a year the baby lay cooing there, 
dragged into the shade or the sun, as the season de- 
manded, by the younger mulatto woman, who bathed and 
dressed her. The marvel of her tiny wardrobe I 
myself remember, for Nana never tired of showing it 
to me, in default of any worthier admirer, during 
the weeks that she stayed with the Verekers at Chrissy's 
advent. 

"See, Iambic, see that little barrow coat," she would 
murmur in awed tones, "and look at the sheaves of wheat 
stand up on the flannel it's a crime to use them so com- 
mon, they're fit for a royal princess !" 

I gazed with interest, aware only that the filmy white 
stuff that wrapped the baby was far thinner and more 
fragile than the material of which my own clothes were 
composed, that each little garment was frosted and flow- 
ered and frescoed with fine needlework in the most 
charming and interesting designs I called them "pic- 
tures on the frocks," and sometimes asked to see any 
fresh ones that might be forthcoming. There was one 
that particularly pleased me, of convolvulus and 
feathery ferns, each frond distinct and like some lovely, 
delicate bas-relief, and it was in this, at my request, that 
the baby was christened. 

"They're all from the West Indies, lovey, where the 
blacks are and the sugar canes and such," Nana in- 
formed me. "There's no such work done in these parts, 
I'll warrant you." 

Aunt Addie and Mrs. Applegate hung enraptured over 
the lacy things and took endless patterns of them, and as 
fast as they were outgrown Nana wrapped them carefully 
in dark blue tissue paper, sprinkled bits of white wax 
amongst them, "against they yellow, with lying idle," and 

83 



THE INHERITANCE 

put them away with twists of lavender from her own gar- 
den in a carved cedar chest from which she contemptu- 
ously turned out the inevitable volumes. 

It lasted, this royal layette, for just a year, and for 
just a year, too, the clothes hamper proved sufficient for 
Chrissy's growing bulk, but when she deliberately upset 
it one day and adventured forth on hands and knees, to 
be found crawling in the road by the scandalized butcher, 
even Diana felt that something must be done, and ap- 
proached the Professor on the subject. He gave the mat- 
ter prolonged consideration, then suggested that a larger 
hamper be ordered from the village. This being done, 
and the answer forthcoming that hampers "didn't come 
any larger," the Professor cogitated still more pro- 
foundly, then caused a carpenter to be summoned. This 
worthy, asked if he could make a basket similar in all 
proportions to the one before him, but larger, agreed 
that he could manage the frame, and the gypsies over by 
the pond could doubtless, if it were made worth their 
while, plait the basket. Orders were accordingly given 
to this effect, and when Nana and I came on our next 
visit we beheld the surprised and baffled infant literally 
roaming about in a mammoth contrivance which had the 
curious effect of making all other furniture seem out 
of proportion, whereat we stood rooted to the ground 
with amazement. 

"Bless the man !" Nana cried, on hearing the history of 
this prodigious basket, "but why did it have to be just 
like the other, then ? A great box would have answered, 
padded thorough, and far less trouble." 

"I supposed from your insistence on the first, that the 
shape and material were best suited to the child's needs 
at this period," the Professor explained. 

"But surely, sir," Nana ventured respectfully, "you 

84 



YOU RENEW ACQUAINTANCE 

could see that there's naught in a basket, to say basket, 
that can help the child." 

The Professor waved his hand vaguely. 

"These matters are hardly within my province," he 
said. "I trust you do not regard the hamper as harmful 
in any way ?" 

"Oh, no, no, sir," she assured him, "not the least. And 
very generous in you, I'm sure, for it must have been a 
heavy expense. You meant well, I'm sure, sir!" 

The Professor was gratified and returned to ancient 
Egypt with a sigh of relief. 

I saw Chrissy only once when she was three : she was 
staggering about, leaning on a huge bloodhound puppy, 
the gift of an English major, I learned, who had jour- 
neyed up from Bermuda, where he was stationed, to visit 
her mother. He had but an hour or so to spare, and 
Nana, learning of his impending arrival, by some mys- 
terious wireless telegraphy beside which Signor Marconi's 
invention is but a slow and mushroom affair, had bustled 
over to see if she could not be helpful in preparing some 
sort of conventional meal, "for the poor bodies have 
eaten messes off trays so long, and the dining-room full of 
books and all," quoth Nana. 

But when we got there we saw that all our sympathy 
was wasted. There in the shade of a great sugar maple 
on the lawn at the east side of the old house, we saw a 
white-spread table glittering with silver and quaint, thick 
cut-glass dishes, a large epergne in the centre filled with 
fragrant, dewy pond-lilies. I saw dark liquids in pot- 
bellied decanters and squat glass dishes with ginger in 
syrup and dried fruits heaped on a basket-work silver 
platter. There were little groups of slender, small glasses 
at each of the three plates, an arrangement I had never 
seen before, and on a sort of tray on legs, nuts, 

85 



THE INHERITANCE 

sweet biscuits, ripe peaches and a tinier decanter waited. 

We entered modestly from the back, and found the 
silent, yellow cook in a most unwonted bustle, her stove 
overflowing, her languor and sulks all gone. Diana, we 
learned, was dressing her mistress, and was not required 
to wait at table, as the Major's body-servant would attend 
to that. 

Nana, frankly curious, and excited in spite of herself, 
inspected the courses as they went out, and I poked an 
inquiring nose toward each savoury dish as Diana handed 
it to the stiff but appreciative orderly : chilled cantaloupes 
(muskmelons, we boys called them) ; a rjch broth of 
clams, with nutmeg atop; a massive lobster in a nest of 
shredded cabbage and lettuces ; quarters of young chicken 
cased in batter and smothered in mushrooms (War- 
wickians at that period regarded this vegetable growth as 
but doubtfully wholesome) and a pyramid of tinted jellies, 
quivering and odorous. Major Protheroe, bronzed and 
spare, sat at one side of the polished mahogany table, 
the Professor, positively distinguished in a yellowish linen 
suit, with a new necktie and polished shoes, sat opposite, 
and between them a lady whom I did not at first recog- 
nise laughed and chatted pleasantly. 

"A body'd never know her," Nana whispered, and then 
I realized that it was Mrs. Vereker. She had on a worked 
muslin frock and a pale blue sash with long floating ends 
about her waist; her dark shadowy hair was rolled out 
on each side of her face and drawn high on her head with 
a big, carved ivory comb behind. About her neck a deep 
red carbuncle hung on a carved gold chain, and she had 
earrings of the same in her small ears. There was not 
a book nor review nor so much as a pamphlet anywhere 
about, and her vivacity and animation were surprising. 
Chrissy, leaning over the deep-jowled hound's neck, tod- 

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YOU RENEW ACQUAINTANCE 

died about the grass, and with her, too, miracles had been 
achieved. Her hair, at that time light, had been coaxed 
into curls, and a rose-coloured band tied among them; 
"the yellow woman ran up that little frock out of an 
old petticoat of madam's," Nana muttered, "and I took 
note of the pink sash and the embroidered socks in a 
drawer once." 

Irresistibly fascinated, I hung about the group; the 
charming al fresco effect of it (so unusual, in fact, so 
unknown in Warwick) was like a stage scene to me. Not 
so, however, to Nana. She, too, gravitated towards the 
picture unconsciously. 

"For all the world like gentlefolk taking their tea at 
home," she said softly. 

"How are you, laddie?" the Major inquired kindly, sip- 
ping his coffee luxuriously. 

"Come here, Hughie," Mrs. Vereker called, "this is 
little Hugh, Major, a protege of the good doctor I was 
telling you about. A little English boy." 

"English? What's he here for?" asked the Major 
bluntly. 

"Why er why is he, Christopher ?" she said, the ear- 
rings swaying as she turned ; "I never knew exactly, did 
I ? Some inheritance business I suppose under a will, 
or something of that sort wasn't that the idea we got 
from Miss Caldwell ? His nurse is here, I think . . ." 

But Nana had slipped back behind the cedar shrubbery, 
and I had no idea what I was here for, so I couldn't 
help. 

"Undoubtedly, undoubtedly," the Professor agreed 
wisely, and the Major added : 

"Oh, of course, if it's property ,. . . " and everybody 
seemed satisfied. 

I was in the last of my London clothes, a sailor suit of 
7 8 7 



THE INHERITANCE 

white drilling, too small for me, but treasured by Nana 
because of the intense midsummer heats, and as Chrissy 
and I hung over the patient puppy and a little breeze 
scattered the scent of the pond lilies, the Major glanced 
contentedly over the scene a natural enough one to him 
and sighed. 

"It's quite like being at home, Vereker, isn't it?" he 
said ; "they told me I should find America so different." 

"Oh, no," said the Professor, "dear me, no. Very 
much the same, I should say." 

"Why should it be different?" Mrs. Vereker queried 
innocently. I heard a gasp behind the cedar shrubbery, 
and I knew now why Nana lost control of herself to that 
extent: a scene and people more unlike the South 
Warwick of that day would have been difficult to find 
in that vicinity. Not a person there but the Major was 
in his or her usual course, nothing that they did or said 
seemed real or possible to any of the spectators. As to 
the Verekers, who can tell which was their real life 
this hasty scene, set, staged and (it seemed to Chrissy and 
me) acted for a few hours, or that pale, solitary existence 
to which they returned, directly he left, as easily as they 
had left it! Chrissy remembers the rose-coloured sash 
and fillet well, and the sugared wine-and-water and nuts 
and candied ginger we were fed by the indulgent Major, 
who was, like many bachelors, devoted to children. 

"Are there many balls about here, now ?" he asked idly ; 
"do you remember how we danced till morning on the 
old JEtnaf" 

This could not but catch my ear, for I knew from Mrs. 
Parrott that there were abandoned parents on the hill 
who sent their children to dancing masters precisely in 
order to set them on this broad road leading to destruc- 
tion. But I connected the diversion with childhood ex- 

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YOU RENEW ACQUAINTANCE 

clusively, and the idea of elderly ladies (as Mrs. Vereker 
appeared to me to be) as having been at any time in the 
memory of man engaged in such performances seemed 
fantastic to a degree. 

Much later, when I saw a picture of her in ball costume 
with a wreath of gardenias on her dark head and a 
bracelet (it had a lock of the Major's hair in it) on her 
arm, I was able to realize that she was but five and 
twenty at the time and consequently not more than thirty, 
at most, when the Major recalled those nights on the deck' 
of the old jEtna. 

"Are there many balls, Christopher?" she asked indif- 
ferently, and the Professor looked vague and said po- 
litely : 

"My interests, Eugenie, are not such as to keep me au 
courant with the local pleasures of that sort, but I have 
no doubt that there are the usual number!" 

"Humph !" breathed Nana. 

"Much hunting?" the Major queried negligently; "it 
looked good hunting country from the coach." 

At this point I hastened to assist the conversation. 

"They hunted a fox up on Bragg's Hill," I piped up; 
"some big boys shot him." 

"Pooh, pooh !" the Major chided ; "s-sh, s-sh, my man ! 
Foxes aren't shot, you know ! Mustn't go wrong there." 

"But this fox " I went on instructively, and ceased 

abruptly, for I caught Nana's eye, glowering from the 
shrubbery. 

"Speaking of inheritance, and property, and that sort 
of thing," the Major said, jerkily, as he always spoke, 
"Stacey's got the title, you know." 

"Really?" Mrs. Vereker cried, "dear Major Stacey! 
When?" 

"Brother chucked off his mare," said the Major, "all 

89 



THE INHERITANCE 

girls in that family, you know. Three years, nearly. But 
he put in a steward and sticks by the service. Says he 
won't leave these ten years." 

"That's like him," said Mrs. Vereker, softly, "did he 
stay in India?" 

It may seem unlikely to you that a child of my age 
should have noted so clearly the difference between these 
people and the other citizens on whose daily lives my little 
life impinged, but I did note it. The desultory talk that 
went on for an hour, so much more abrupt than ours, 
apparently, and taking so much for granted that Ameri- 
cans would have been busily explaining to one another; 
the infinitely wider field of conversation sans argument, 
sans lecturing, skipping from India to Bermuda; from 
the Emperor (sickening even then, and casting the 
shadow of Sedan before him, though the Major knew it 
not) to the hunting field ; from the frightful cost of trans- 
portation in the States as compared with the parcels post, 
to the Prince Consort and all in such short words, such 
pregnant pauses ! 

When Nana, fascinated with the pleasant English 
sing-song voice, drew nearer and nearer, the easy, kindly 
way in which the Major nodded to her, spoke a good 
word for my health and manners, supposed she missed 
London, and then ceased to notice her, impressed me 
greatly. It had taken South Warwick a long time to ac- 
custom itself to Nana; anyone who combined complete 
independence with what she called "knowing her place" 
puzzled the greater number of her employers and made 
them a little stiff and conscious with her. She "expected 
nothing," as the ladies said, and yet she was so obviously 
superior to the Celtic invasion, who "expected a great 
deal," as to make them a little uncertain of her exact 
place in the social scale. 

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YOU RENEW ACQUAINTANCE 

Well, the red rays of the big sun sank lower and lower 
and turned the grass to emerald, and the amber liquor in 
the Major's tiny glass grew prismatic and the earrings 
seemed to stain Mrs. Vereker's creamy cheek, in the glow. 
Curiously enough, though I never saw her again in any- 
thing like such attractive and becoming dress (nor did any 
one) it is like that I remember her. No one else that I 
ever heard of ever came to visit her, and Chrissy's meta- 
morphosed frock was never again assumed. When next 
I saw her playing with the bloodhound her costume was 
so different as to warrant a detailed description. 

It appears that the Professor, on this memorable after- 
noon, being as nearly recalled to the visible world as was 
ever possible in his case, turned his eyes on his daughter 
and observed that she stumbled frequently. This, though 
partly due to her youth, was undoubtedly to a certain ex- 
tent to be explained by her rose-coloured sash, which was 
bound tightly just below her knees, thereby rendering 
her progress toward any desired point extremely slow and 
uncertain. 

"The child seems to be trammelled," he said critically, 
and Nana, thriftily tying the silver up in faded canton- 
flannel bags, spoke soothingly to him, as was her wont. 

"That's true, sir," she admitted, "but then, 'tis a girl, 
you see, sir, and she must expect it." 

"Why?" asked the Professor laconically. 

' 'Why' ?" Nana repeated patiently, "why, because, sir, 
she must be used to it some time, mustn't she, sir ?" 

"There are women there have been women," the Pro- 
fessor continued dreamily, "whose garments have not 
confined their bodies in the slightest degree." 

"But not Christians, sir !" Nana suggested firmly. 

"Ah! perhaps not, perhaps not," he agreed, "but that 
does not prevent the fact that the freedom must be ex- 



THE INHERITANCE 

tremely desirable, especially in the growing child. The 
early attempts at locomotion would seem to be sufficiently 
complicated without adding to the difficulty, in the mat- 
ter of costume. I will consider the matter more fully." 

"Of course, the sash could be tied higher up, sir," 
Nana ventured, but he waved her off. 

"You are like Hamlet, Christopher, you mean to reform 
it altogether, don't you?" said Mrs. Vereker, laughing, 
and he gave her a sweet and wonderfully human smile 
even I felt it. But what he intended to do nobody so 
much as dreamed. 

On his next constitutional to the barn and back, he 
drew, Diana told Nana, strange figures in a sand bank 
behind the cowhouse, and finally requested a large sheet 
of wrapping paper on which he sketched an uncanny 
pattern I say uncanny, because, simply, it appeared so to 
the scandalized few permitted to see it. Huxley's little 
grandchildren (Hux married early, and his sons followed 
his eminently successful example) wear precisely the 
same garments to-day and call them "overalls." I have 
seen many small maidens in them, for that matter, pret- 
tily pink-and-blue. But none of us had seen them then, 
and as, at the Professor's request, they were made up out 
of strong material resembling bedticking, as the long legs 
and arms were uncompromisingly unadorned, as, finally 
and unpardonably, they indicated with anatomical accu- 
racy the fact that Miss Vereker was possessed of two 
legs, they were from the Warwickian point of view 
shockingly indecent. For three or four years Chrissy 
wore them, and Diana enlarged the pattern as fresh air, 
exercise and food enlarged Chrissy. Her hair was soon 
cut short by the mulattress, too, who did not care for chil- 
dren and took every means to make her charge as little 
troublesome as possible. The Professor, pleased with 

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YOU RENEW ACQUAINTANCE 

the success of this, his first sartorial venture, bent his 
mind upon the question of foot gear, as Chrissy detested 
shoes and stockings but cut her little feet on the rough 
stones and briers of the old pastures where she played. 
A shoemaker was summoned and given a drawing of a 
strange affair with a strong sole and a top consisting only 
of two straps and buckles. 

"I suppose," said the Professor, "it would not be im- 
possible to make a pair of these ?" 

"Nothin's impossible, if you've got the leather," said 
the shoemaker stolidly, "though it looks pretty queer, and 
that's a fact. I guess the little one will be the first that 
ever wore 'em." 

"Except for a negligible nation or two, yes," said the 
Professor gravely. 

"A nation ?" asked the cobbler doubtfully. 

"The Greeks, sir," the Professor assured him politely. 

"Oh, well, they don't live nowheres about here, I 
guess," the man of leather commented pityingly, and to 
this the Professor agreed with a sigh. 

That cobbler's son, then a bright boy of twelve or so, 
followed his father's trade, for a wonder, and has often 
told me how, sitting in the modern office in his great 
factory, full of telephones and typewriters and filing sys- 
tems and electric bells, the remembrance flashed across 
him, one busy morning, apropos of some customer's com- 
plaints that the leather shoes seemed so heavy for sum- 
mer, of the curious contrivances his father had made for 
the crazy English gentleman on the Bragg's Hill road, 
long ago, and he sent for a designer or two and a patent 
lawyer and an illustrator and an advertising agent, and, 
shortly after, flooded the world with the famous barefoot 
sandal for children. 

But Professor Vereker was, long before that time, in 

93 



THE INHERITANCE 

the bosom of Isis (or wherever it is that good Egyptolo- 
gists go) and never knew to what extent his paternal 
inspiration was justified. 

I wished he could have been with me the day I motored 
among the New Hampshire hills in the great screaming 
buff-coloured Panhard in which a wealthy friend of mine 
stakes our lives when he wishes to gratify us. He is not 
only very wealthy but curiously humble to any of us 
and this humility and the reason for it is so twisted in 
with one of the saddest parts of my life that, much as I 
admire his essentially fine nature, to be with him leaves 
me in a confusion of regret, remorse and respect too 
painful to be often undergone. I must tell more of him 
in a proper place. 

On the occasion I have in mind, however, he stopped 
with something as nearly related to a jerk as he admits 
the buff-coloured terror is capable of perpetrating, and 
pointed to a neat little vine-draped cottage in an emerald 
plot of turf, set back from the road. 

"See that?" he queried. 

"Do you mean the place, or the old negro on the 
porch ?" I asked, in my turn. 

"Both, doctor," he answered. 

"After I had cleaned up a pretty good pile oh, say 
ten years ago, I was coming through here, to see how the 
little fire-engine affair I'd given the village was working 
you know I lived here when I was a boy, once, for a 
little while. Well, my car broke down and I stopped here 
for repairs at the blacksmith's yonder, and stepped in 
here for a drink of water. Nothing but water for me, 
since oh, well, you know." 

I did know, and I winced. Oh, Bert, Bert, why need 
it have happened? 

"Well," he went on hastily, his eyes averted, "there 

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YOU RENEW ACQUAINTANCE 

was an old darkey woman sitting on that porch, sewing, 
and she seemed sort of superior, somehow, and very soft 
spoken, and offered me some red flowers I admired. 
'They look like the red stuff that grew in a place I used 
to live in,' says I. 

" 'Where was that, sir?' she says. 

" 'South Warwick/ says I. 

" 'For the Lord's sake, sir,' she cried out, getting up 
suddenly, 'I lived there twenty-one years! Might I ask 
your name?' 

"Of course she didn't know it when she heard it I 
was only there a little while, you know but you can bet 
I found out about her pretty quick. It seems she 
used to be a servant in some house there I couldn't 
get the name at all, after all. But whenever I'm 
up this way I look her up. Anybody from that town, 
you know . . . 

"I offered her some little present or other, but she 
wouldn't touch it. She got me out some tea and some 
ginger preserves my, they were great, those preserves ! 
and a young darkey woman living with her told me 
they were very comfortable indeed; the old woman had 
made a neat little nest-egg selling those calico overalls 
the kids wear now, you know. It seems the old woman 
invented 'em herself, and sent 'em all over the country 
long before the big stores took 'em up. So they'd saved 
enough to get along, though their orders were smaller 
now. Funny thing, she told me, they were really thought 
up by a man, a writing chap, that was her employer for 
all those twenty-one years." 

"Was the name Vereker ?" I cried, and he stared. 

"That's it Vereker! Why of course!" 

I made him turn back, and we went up to 
the clean little kitchen. I doubt if I should have known 

95 



THE INHERITANCE 

her, she was so withered and darkened, but when I 
asked : 

"Is this you, Diana ?" a look of comprehension dawned 
in her failing eyes, and she staggered up and dropped a 
curtsey. 

"It's Master Hugh, Diana, the Professor's friend and 
Miss Chrissy's, don't you remember? That lived in 
South Warwick?" 

"Warwick, yes, sir, Warwick," she mumbled, but the 
light faded out again, and we left her to her dozing and 
dreaming. 

How Chrissy romped and climbed and swung and 
jumped in those ridiculous Noah's Ark garments! (By 
the way, I am told they call them "rompers" now.) 

After I left Mrs. Parrott's for "Number Six," I 
scarcely saw Chrissy again for the five years that I 
roamed, a lawless little "ganger," under Rob's leadership. 
I scorned girls then, and the views I caught of her from 
time to time, when we went nutting, or after choke- 
cherries, or gypsy-baiting, were not conducive to mascu- 
line admiration. Once I saw her battling with a young, 
trampish boy who had sneaked in under the tree she was 
beating and began to pick up her nuts. She came down 
like a flash, hand over hand, and wrestled with him 
fiercely, not biting nor screaming nor gulping (great 
tricks of her sex when so engaged) but in a stern retrib- 
utive silence. Her dog was not with her, for some rea- 
son, and she was hard put to it, but she won, and drove 
him off snarling. It must have been about this time that 
I fought a gang of hoodlums that came out to make fun 
of her "boys' clothes," as they called them. I was beaten, 
of course, but between the three of us, Chrissy, the hound 
and me, we punished them pretty fairly, and the other 
boys got up in time to save the day. Chrissy had a cut 

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YOU RENEW ACQUAINTANCE 

lip and a bruise on her forehead, and if she cried, it was 
from baffled rage alone. As a result of this battle Nana 
managed to get her into frocks again, to her bitter dis- 
gust, for she sulked and tore them off until they had to 
burn the old emancipated, trouser-legged garb to ashes. 
Then she took to shoes, Nana told us, and by the time I 
left for Crane Academy, she must have looked much like 
any other broad, brown, silent little girl of two or three 
years more than she, for she was very large for her age. 
She never was known to have an illness of any sort, 
Nana said, and was never seen with any other playmate 
than the great hound. The wind and the brook and the 
big rocks of Bragg's Hill were her companions, and in 
the light of what they made her, finally, I could wish 
more growing girls better acquainted with these friends. 



CHAPTER IX 
In Which I Grow Up 

1 SOMETIMES think that men may be classified 
broadly as those who have or have not had a happy 
youth. I say men, because women seem so much 
more flexible; so much better able to grow flowering 
vines over the ugly rocks of their past years; so much 
quicker to forget what they do not wish remembered. I 
have never known a man (who was not an artist) pos- 
sessed of the ability to really give himself up to happy 
hours in middle life, if his childhood had been cheated 
of such hours. Which seems unfair, somehow, but . . . 
when was this odd business of life ever fair? More than 
kind, sometimes, for me but less than decent, in turn, 
for you ! No, no, the only place you may look for logic 
and certainty is in Euclid and even he had to assume 
his axioms! 

They tell me the Germans are questioning them, now, 
by the way (since there was nothing left for them to 
question, I suppose), which must be a great joy to the 
schoolboys. And this brings me back to my mutton again 
and the fact that as a schoolboy I was very happy. As 
I look back on the six years of my life at Crane's, I am 
sure it is no deceitfully rosy glow of memory that veils 
my youth there. For the essentials of happiness can all 
be counted coldly: I was among those I loved, I was 
healthy, I was in comfortable circumstances, and I was 
kept so busy that my play hours were highly valued. 

98 



I GROW UP 

Dr. Crane's school would have been a credit, I believe, 
to any generation of boys ; in ours it was a marvel. His 
father had taken him and his brothers to Switzerland for 
their education, and he had imported the discipline and 
other good features from Vevay, grafted onto it the 
English system of honours and responsibilities among the 
boys, and added the rough-and-ready democracy of his 
native country to a better housing and feeding plan than 
Europe (I am convinced) ever offered in any school! 

How proud I was the day when I heard my name read 
out on the list, after Friday prayers, as among the three 
selected, for general standing, to dine with the doctor's 
family the next Sunday noon ! Under sixteen, for Sun- 
day dinner at noon ; over sixteen, to Thursday dinner at 
night, was the rule, and it was regarded as no empty 
honor. The doctor and his family lived in the right wing 
of the great house, entirely separate, with a separate front 
door and a large lawn and verandah away from the play- 
ing field. A distant relative of his, Miss Temperance, 
was school housekeeper, as Mrs. Crane had no connec- 
tion whatever with the institution, to the never-ending 
gossip of South Warwick, which considered that she held 
herself absurdly high, but was gratified when asked to 
her evening parties. Her old coachman was one of the 
few liveried men in the town, and her daughters had a 
governess. 

Oh, Dossy! Oh, Pippy! Oh, Lulu! I can see you 
now, and if you are confused in my mind with roast tur- 
key, baked sweet potatoes glazed with sugar, frozen pud- 
ding with figs and almonds in it, and nuts and port (we 
called it port wine) afterwards, it is only because I met 
you all together. 

Dossy's name was Dorothea, and she was tall, blonde 
and slender, with dark blue eyes and a very tiny waist. 

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THE INHERITANCE 

Pippy's name was Philippa, and she was medium-sized 
and dark, with plump, laughing shoulders and a dimple, 
and loved a joke. Lulu's name was Henrietta, and she 
was small and unspeakably graceful, with sandy hair, 
green eyes and any amount of freckles. Everybody at 
Crane's fell madly in love with Dossy at sight, grew tired 
of her by degrees, and found that Pippy was more fun, 
then, by some mysterious but inevitable influence, real- 
ized that it was Lulu he had loved all the time, and rarely 
recovered entirely till he left the academy. It was no 
surprise to any boy at Crane's when Lulu married the 
handsomest and richest young man that ever visited War- 
wick, and all the mothers wondered how on earth that 
plain, little, green-eyed, freckled creature had ever at- 
tracted young Fortunatus ! We knew. Nor, on the other 
hand, were we very much in the dark as to why Dossy, 
called for long the prettiest girl in Warwick, finally at 
the age of twenty-five (a ripe age, then, my masters!) 
accepted the hand of one of her father's young teachers. 
The mothers all wondered, but we didn't. Somehow, 
Dossy didn't wear. Pippy (bless her!) never married at 
all, though she must have had dozens of offers. She got 
better looking all the time, and at forty was one of the 
handsomest women I have ever seen, with thick, crinkly, 
iron-grey hair and the dimple deeper than ever. She 
never found the man, she told me then, that could have 
stood her sense of humour, and perhaps she was right, but 
I can't help thinking that old Mother Nature misses 
Pippy's boys and girls out of her scheme, and would 
gladly exchange Dossy's pale and commonplace young- 
sters for them. As for Lulu's, she has soared so high out 
of our sphere that I don't know anything about them. 

I made quite a name for myself by skipping the Dossy 
phase entirely and becoming at once and for six years 

100 



I GROW UP 

Pippy's faithful slave. Lulu, for some reason, I didn't 
care for very much or very long, and she was always 
rather interested in me on that account. More than once 
she has invited me to share Hux's anise confections with 
her, and on one celebrated occasion asked me on a canoe- 
ing expedition with Bert and had Bert paddle us! But 
that might have been, as he explained later, only for the 
purpose of making him jealous. He was the only boy 
who ever kept in with all three sisters at one time, and it 
is said that Dossy and Pippy came to blows about him in 
the rhododendron shrubbery near the big gold-fish globe. 
But as Lulu was playing mumble-peg with him at the 
time, it didn't so much matter what they did. 

They sat in a short pew together at the Congregational 
Church (the official church of the school) between their 
mother and Miss Temperance, the doctor heading three 
long pews of boys behind. Dossy wore pale blue, Pippy 
deep pink, and Lulu a misleading sort of putty-colour with 
green ribbons. These facts I learned from Rob and Hux, 
who went to church there with the other boys, to Nana's 
scandalization. Aunt Addie had come too late to have 
much effect on their habits, but Bert, Cary and I were 
all confirmed together, and they only escaped now and 
then, when Bert felt the need, from Mr. Applegate, and I, 
of course, never left his fold. He had a settled sermon 
for every season of the Christian year, and we soon got 
to know them almost as well as he did. It is quite true 
that Bert prompted him once, in an Advent sermon, when 
his mind wandered! 

He had come to America, an optimistic British young- 
ster of twenty-odd, with a pink little British wife hardly 
out of her 'teens, some fifteen years before we did. I 
suppose that by the time he had Aunt Addie in whom to 
confide his disillusionments, he had really almost forgot- 

101 



THE INHERITANCE 

ten them, and grown quite accustomed to playing second 
fiddle to the two Congregational churches which, with 
three or four exceptions in our favour, divided the aris- 
tocracy of the town. 

Nana couldn't understand it, frankly, and held long 
if respectful arguments over it with Aunt Addie. 

"To have the chapel folk take the lead, Miss Caldwell !" 
she would breathe sadly, "but it seems fair wicked, and 
Mrs. Crane such a real lady !" 

"Of course, in New York, it's different," Aunt Addie 
would reply, "and you may be thankful, Mrs. False, that 
we are not living in Boston, with that dreadful Mr. Theo- 
dore Parker's sermons read every Sunday! Dr. Crane 
is descended from Jonathan Edwards, you know, and so, 
of course . . . Not that he believes, of course, that 
the poor little babies will be burned . . . but his wife 
was a Quincy. And that reminds me, Mrs. False, could 
you spare a day or two this week to show Norah about 
some quince marmalade?" 

It is probable that this conversation was responsible 
for Nana's attitude towards a great book of Professor 
Vereker's, whose illustrations delighted my soul at one 
period. She found me once studying with horrid joy an 
old woodcut of a great cage of wicker-work filled with 
Druidical victims, in the process of being burned, with 
many severe Druids, carrying knives and mistletoe, stalk- 
ing around it. 

"Ugh! Nasty dissenting things!" said Nana with a 
shudder, and when I, fourteen, classical, and otherwise 
erudite, informed her seriously that at that period of the 
world's history the Druids, far from being dissenters, 
were on the contrary ardent members of the then Estab- 
lished Church of England, she turned on me fiercely. 

"I'll thank you for none of that nonsense, Master 

102 



I GROW UP 

Hugh ! I know all about that dreadful old Jonathan Ed- 
wards and his burnt babies. Disgusting, I call it. I 
take notice that Dr. Crane burned none of his own, 
though!" 

There was nothing with which to meet all this con- 
fusion of ideas but a tolerant masculine sigh, which I 
forthwith heaved, and closed the book. 

And how did I happen to be opening and closing books 
at the Professor's? 

By what we call, of course, mere chance if there 
really is such a thing! 

A few days after my fourteenth birthday I had gone, 
in response to a message from Nana, to the Verekers, 
in order to take some important parcel or other to Mrs. 
Applegate from her. Nana was nursing the cook, who 
had an attack of jaundice, and had utilized the occasion 
(Nana's usual method with occasions) to persuade Diana, 
who was a wonderful needlewoman and laundress, to "do 
up," mend and incidentally decorate with a trifle of sim- 
ple embroidery, the little store of clerical linen that hung 
in Mr. Applegate's professional wardrobe. 

St. Matthews' was distinctly looking up in these days. 
Not only had the Lees and the Peytons joined us (and 
though they were poor as church mice, they were "qual- 
ity" of the first order, and well did South Warwick learn 
that lesson!) but Aunt Addie, under the impression that 
she had originated the idea, suggested to Mrs. Applegate 
that if Dr. Crane's boarding-school should be thoroughly 
canvassed it was more than likely that a certain number 
of "Church-boys" would be found, whose parents, if 
written to, would be glad to have their children attend 
St. Matthews' rather than the "First Church." 

"Of course," said Aunt Addie, in the piercing tones 
necessary if any successful communication was to be 
8 103 



THE INHERITANCE 

made to her hearer, "of course, as Mrs. False says, it 
would have to be done very specially, by Mr. Applegate, 
and in such a way that the Doctor wouldn't mind. But 
they're our boys and we ought to have them if there 
are any." 

And so a list was obtained, and letters were despatched, 
and parental consent was got, and as a result seven young 
gentlemen appeared on Easter Sunday, led by one of the 
teachers, and filled a pew discreetly thereafter. And be- 
fore the next long vacation began, seven young ladies (by 
a curious coincidence!) marshalled by a strict and ex- 
traordinarily High Church drawing teacher, paraded 
every Sunday from Miss Hoppin's Select Seminary for 
Young Ladies to the seat across the aisle from the seven 
young gentlemen. 

Miss Fanny Banks taught these their Collects and re- 
sponses in the Sunday school that Nana had supposed 
sacred to the needs of what she persisted in calling "the 
villagers' " children, and couldn't understand how it was 
possible that little Chrissy Vereker could be considered 
eligible to its ranks. 

"If the young ladies were wishful to teach, now," she 
would say stiffly, and only yielded her point to Mr. Ap- 
plegate himself. 

"You know, it's different at home," he pleaded earn- 
estly, and Nana sniffed, murmured something about 
"burnt babies," and yielded. Miss Ellaline Rogers had 
the Sunday school room repainted and the little wheezy 
melodeon repaired; the Miss Peytons covered the small 
store of library books with fresh chocolate-coloured mus- 
lin, and pasted on new titles written in a spidery hand. 
Miss Fanny Banks donated twenty-five new volumes 
(how Dossy and Pippy wept over The Daisy Chain and 
The Pillars of the House!) and Mrs. Levi Bragg, not to 

104 



I GROW UP 

be outdone, carpeted the church itself, so that with its 
ivy-smothered walls and quaint, unpretentious, coloured 
windows, it looked a very prosperous little House of God 
indeed, and began to draw quite a contingent of young 
people, who came at first to see the summer visitors from 
the city, and remained out of sheer interest in the beau- 
tiful old liturgy and the reverent pageant of the Church's 
commemorative year. 

Diana turned out (by one of Nana's intuitive strokes 
of genius) to have been specially trained in the cutting 
and embroidering of churchly vestments, and under the 
delighted superintendence of Miss Hoppin's drawing- 
teacher, constructed a new and beautiful set of these gar- 
ments, and the drawing-teacher's brother, a curate in 
Trinity Parish, preached a series of Lenten sermons in 
them that actually became quite "the thing" in South 
Warwick, so that on Good Friday the little building was 
crowded to the doors and the boys from Dr. Crane's (all 
in the confirmation class) had to bring in chairs from 
the Sunday school room and put them in the aisles ! Mrs. 
Applegate wept from excitement, and there were forty- 
eight dollars in the alms-basin. 

Well ! It was on an errand in the matter of these 
vestments that I came to the Professor's that day and 
made one of the great discoveries of my life. 

For as I waited patiently enough, in the book-filled 
dining-room, wondering vaguely what had become of the 
little girl that used to live there, and whether she ever 
learned to swim, and if it were true that she didn't come 
to the Sunday school because her father wanted her to 
learn all about all the religions in their historical order 
before she became conversant with Christian doctrines, 
my eye fell on a large, dimly lettered, fat, black, leather 
volume with an embossed golden picture on the cover, of 

105 



THE INHERITANCE 

a man dropping a tight bundle from his back into an 
interesting pit full of horned devils and leering satyrs, 
leaping in flaming fire. I drew it toward me languidly, 
unclasped the great tarnished clasps that shut it together, 
and opened wherever the leaves might fall apart. Pome- 
granates and bells twined about the large, clear print, 
framing it as if it were a picture ; and between the double 
columns of each page grew a slender mysterious tree with 
an evil snake folded among the branches. Like the ru- 
brics of the Prayer-book, there were little headings done 
in red, and where I opened, these read : 

"Mr. Valiant summoned . . . His will . . . his last 
words. 

" 'Then,' said he, 7 am going to my Father's . . . My 
sword I give to him that shall succeed me in my Pilgrim- 
age, and my Courage and Skill to him that can get it . . . 
my Marks and Scars / carry with me.' . . . 

"When the day that he must go hence was come, 
many accompanied him to the riverside, into which 
as he went he said, 'Death, where is thy sting f 
and as he went down deeper, he said, 'Grave, where 
is thy victory?' 

"So he passed over, and all the Trumpets sounded for 
him on the other side." 

And with those trumpets sounding in my ears I turned 
back the pages and read, now here, now there, of that 
brave, ageless Pilgrim and his wondrous Progress 
through life, which has never changed, to the celestial 
city, which has, somehow, in all these years, altered con- 
siderably in the theory of its architecture, customs, and 
population ! 

I don't remember, honestly, if I had read many or 
any books before that day: I must have, I suppose. 
But they could have made little impression on me, for I 

106 



I GROW UP 

never took them at all seriously, nor, I am sure, spent 
much time with them. 

But that afternoon (a cool, mellow October one, I re- 
member, with yellow leaves drifting down from a deep 
blue sky, and the winey flavour of them mounting to 
the nostrils) some door opened widely before me, and 
great endless vistas of delight stretched out into the fu- 
ture; some veil dropped, swiftly and silently, from my 
eyes, and I beheld the great, beneficent fields of Art, 
spreading awa/ and away into the dim distance, ready 
for me whenever I should desire them; something woke 
and stirred in my tight-sealed, childish soul and whis- 
pered, "This that you see and touch and hear is not all ! 
There is a worldful of other things you never suspected, 
ready to be lived in, to be enjoyed, to be made your very 
own !" 

In other and perhaps clearer words, I had discovered 
Literature. 

To many perhaps most of my readers this discov- 
ery has never come. It may be that they have always 
lived in the great country, or walked into it so young 
or so gradually that there was no moment when their 
freehold was lacking there. But with me there is always 
the memory of that dated hour, that point in space and 
time, when I stood silent, like Balboa upon his peak, and 
gazed, awakened, upon the great ocean, all unsuspected 
till now, that glittered before me in that October sun. 

There was no such collection of books in the town 
(or in many towns, for that matter), and from that time 
on I can see that my detachment from Bert and Gary 
began. Rob and Hux were studying hard for their ex- 
aminations, and quite out of our lives, just then. They 
even ate their dinner with the school (to gain the ad- 
vantage of the table conversation, carried on in German), 

107 



THE INHERITANCE 

and went on long geological rambles, which were very 
popular at about that time, accompanied by one of the 
teachers and a number of little bags and hammers, when 
they were not engaged in translating Greek and Latin. 
They stood high in Dr. Crane's regard, and their father 
was very proud of them. Cary took a sudden turn for 
the better, and grew quite strong, for him, with the result 
that he threw himself feverishly into the sports and com- 
panionships not always possible for him, and became 
one of a trio of inseparables who parted only for the 
night. It might have been a quartette, for either Bert 
or I would have been welcome, but Bert was pleased to 
find them a little young for him, and I, not sorry to find 
Cary no longer entirely dependent on us, slipped away 
to the Professor's books just often enough to break the 
continual intimacy that such a small band needs, so that 
we five became slowly and insensibly separated, never, 
I can see now, to be together on quite the old terms. 

It was in these next two years, I believe, that Bert 
began to develop that life apart from the rest of us that 
no one, at that time, suspected. The doctor does not 
agree with me, and believes with Nana, that, years 
ago, among the livery-stable hangers-on and the gipsy 
squatters near the pond were sowed the seeds of those 
childish wild oats that we supposed buried under the neat 
gravel walks of all the terms at Crane's Academy. Ah, 
well, what does it matter, now? Maybe it was born in 
him, as old Norah always maintained, that subtle taint 
of blood, that little, ugly trait of secrecy, that unquench- 
able thirst for the lawless, the hidden, the unconventional, 
the proscribed. 

Nobody knew when he made those expeditions on 
which he learned so much unknown to us: he never 
seemed to be absent from schoolroom or playground any 

108 



I GROW UP 

more than the rest of us. He was known and liked 
by every boy in the Academy. But the young men about 
Fox's bar knew him, too, and the snickering loafers at 
the old stable, and the gipsies and the travelling actors 
that played in the old town hall. 

Mrs. Applegate adored him and would never listen 
to Nana's fears that he smoked those dreadful cigarettes 
that he rolled up in tissue paper, and Lily Peyton gave 
him a piece of her hair in a locket; but Fanny Pratt 
was seen wearing the locket one day, and after that 
Bert was never inside the Peyton gates, and Fanny's 
mother put her in the Sisters' school though it was 
whispered that she went down on her knees to Father 
Ryan before he'd let the girl in. Fanny's father was 
the ticket agent at the station, and there is no doubt 
she hung about the tracks too much. "The tracks" made 
a social district of their own, and I shall never forget 
Rob's face on the day when, back from his successful 
examinations we had all marched up with him to the 
academy to hear him tell the Doctor he had looked 
around him as we entered the big gates, saying, "Where's 
Bert ?" and a butcher boy, driving his red wagon through 
as we passed him, mimicked scornfully, " 'Where's- Bert ? 
Where's Bert?' Better go down to the tracks, Mr. Rob 
Caldwell you're sure to find him there !" 

Bert was fifteen then, and well grown for his age, and 
when the Doctor and Aunt Addie found out after Rob's 
stormy outburst, for he had gone down to the tracks and 
had .found Bert there, not in the most creditable cir- 
cumstances for the brother of a Yale freshman of good 
standing when they found this out and a great deal 
more, that was not such a surprise to some people as it 
was to Dr. Caldwell, it was felt that Bert had been taken 
in time and that a new start would be made. Well, well 

109 



THE INHERITANCE 

I don't know. Perhaps it would have been in time for 
another boy . . . perhaps. 

One day, when I had quite got into the way of spend- 
ing two or three afternoons in the week at the Verekers 
I came quietly in through the kitchen, and roamed 
about that floor as I wished, with the Professor's cordial 
consent I glanced up from my book (it was the Ara- 
bian Nights) with the sensation of being looked at, and 
found a girl in a short, tight frock staring at me from 
a pile of lexicons on which she was sitting. 

Her dark hair was cut only a little longer than a boy's, 
and hung elfishly about her face, which was tanned to 
a rich, even brown; her eyes were deep-set and dark, 
with heavy, straight brows ; her lips firmly shut. I had 
not seen her for a long time, but I knew it was Chrissy 
Vereker. 

"Hello," I said patronisingly, "how do you do? Do 
you go to school yet ?" 

For it was a scandalous fact that when last I had 
heard of her she could not even read, as she had behaved 
so strangely at old Mrs. Parrott's that the Professor had 
been forced to remove her from that abode of learning. 

"No," she replied calmly, "I don't. I don't like 
schools." 

"So I hear," said I maliciously ; "the schools don't like 
you either, do they?" 

She looked at me quietly for a moment longer, then 
got up, with a certain clumsy dignity, and walked away, 
leaving me a little uncomfortable, though of course I 
wouldn't admit it. It wasn't very polite, what I had 
said, to be sure, but then, I didn't think the occasion 
called for politeness, precisely. It was only Chrissy 
Vereker, and she was only nine years old, a tomboy, who 
couldn't even read. From one who measured girls by 

no 



I GROW UP 

Dossy and Pippy, one who wore long trousers and read 
C&sar's Commentaries, it was incredible that such a colt- 
ish creature should expect anything but an amused toler- 
ance, and that was what I had meant to convey. 

When I met her again she was nursing her big hound, 
who had run a thorn into his foot, and the handy way in 
which she washed and bandaged it rather impressed me. 

"Big fellow, isn't he ?" I asked, and she nodded silently. 

"Do you remember the day we fought the town boys in 
Bragg's wood?" I asked her, and she smiled gravely and 
nodded again. 

Do you notice how easily I said "town boy"? And 
yet, four years ago, I had been a "town boy" myself, 
and all unknown to Mrs. Crane and the Misses Peyton. 
I was honestly unconscious of it. 

She seemed a jolly little thing enough when she smiled, 
and her very taciturnity made one interested in "drawing 
her out," as the phrase goes. It seemed she knew Bert 
quite well, and often spent hours with him while he fished 
the upper lengths of the Mill River. 

"I like him," she said briefly. "He tells me nice sto- 
ries." 

"I'll tell you one, if you like," said I, and then, on 
second thoughts, I took her into the dining room and 
read her from the Mart d' Arthur, which she appeared 
to enjoy very thoroughly. 

"Now, if you knew how to read," I appended instruc- 
tively, "see how you would enjoy this book yourself. 
Why don't you learn ?" 

She bent her brows thoughtfully. "But I do know 
how," she said quietly, "only not in English. That book 
is in English." 

"What can you read?" I asked, amused. 

"Latin," she answered. 

in 



THE INHERITANCE 

"Wh-what Latin?" I stammered distrustfully. 

"Oh, Ovid, and about Balbus and Medusa, and other 
things," she said vaguely; "my father says Latin came 
first and I must read it first." 

When Dr. Crane, amused and scandalised at this story, 
made a call upon the Professor to inquire of him why, at 
that rate, he hadn't started Chrissy on Coptic, which had 
the advantage of Latin in the matter of priority, to say 
nothing of the Early Saxon Chronicles, the Professor 
staggered him by replying simply that he had, but that 
the child hadn't at that time the necessary degree of con- 
centration for either ! Geometry, however, he added, she 
mastered easily, and greatly interested the doctor by 
showing him the whitewashed walls of the cowhouse, 
completely frescoed with large theorems done in charcoal. 

"At that rate," the doctor commented, "she must have 
been at fractions when she was seven." 

"She has never heard of them," the Professor re- 
plied, and then it came out that Chrissy didn't know her 
tables, and couldn't have told you seven times eight to 
save her life ! 

At this point the doctor threw up his hands in de- 
spair and rode away (he rode everywhere on a great, 
gray mare), and told us all about it on the Thursday 
after my sixteenth birthday, when, with outward flip- 
pancy but inward pride, I dined at half past six with 
his family. Pippy, a year older than I, had just put up 
her hair, and Dossy, reported to be engaged to Miss Hop- 
pin's drawing teacher's brother, was ethereally lovely 
in pale sky blue. Lulu, who was paying for years of 
heart breaking by a real and not-too-steadily-reciprocated 
attachment for Bert, sulked quietly next her mother be- 
cause Bert's standard of work had not allowed him to 
come to Thursday dinner yet. Mrs. Crane, I think, was 

112 



I GROW UP 

glad of this, and we knew, somehow, that she was glad. 
We had an idea, too, why it was that she was glad. And 
yet when Bert jumped for her parasol, opened it for her 
with his winning smile (which no woman, child or ani- 
mal, I believe, ever resisted), patted her pug, a hateful 
little beast that snapped at every boy in the school 
but him, and hoped she'd have a pleasant drive, 
she smiled back at him as she never smiled at Rob or 
Hux! 

Hux went up to Yale that autumn, and Bert and I went 
upstairs to the doctor's own room, and I was monitor 
for the little fellows, adjudged their grievances, sat at 
the German conversation table and answered quite as 
often to the name of "Caldwell senior" as to my own. 
Even Dr. Crane called me that. There had always 
been a Caldwell senior and a Caldwell junior, and Bert 
and I had their desks. Up to sixteen we had been Bert 
and Hugh. ("Bert," though nicknames were strictly 
taboo in the schoolroom). But Bert Caldwell couldn't 
be changed, it seems : the girls on the hill and the loafers 
at the tracks, Mrs. Crane and little Chrissy Vereker, all 
called him that. 

Before the winter came on, the Doctor and Aunt Addie 
called me down from our study one evening, where I 
was helping Cary with his algebra, too much, already, 
for his fretful attention, for he had had a bad summer, 
and looked pinched and worn. Bert was out somewhere, 
no one knew exactly where, though we all supposed (or 
said we supposed) he was with a crowd of decent enough 
young lads who were going to serenade Miss Hoppin's 
girls. 

"Hugh," said the Doctor, "are you staying here to- 
night?" 

"Yes, sir," I said, "Nana is afraid those people down 

"3 



THE INHERITANCE 

at Harbor Point have scarlet fever. She said I'd better 
stay till they were sure." 

"Glad to have you," he answered musingly. Then, 
"Let's see, Hugh; you're with us quite as much as 
you're at the cottage, aren't you?" 

"Oh, yes, sir more, I suppose. Isn't that so, Aunt 
Addie?" 

She smiled at me : Bert and I were always her 
favourites. 

"Well, well, all the better then," he said. And then, 
as simply as possible, the next great change in my life 
slipped quietly into place. 

Mrs. Vereker had been coughing slightly all summer, 
and now, by September, the cough was worse. Native 
air, in the Doctor's opinion, was indicated, and he had 
strongly advised her spending the winter in Bermuda. A 
sudden chance to go, slowly and in comparative comfort, 
in the one ladies' cabin on a big schooner, had turned 
up, and she had agreed to start in a few days, taking 
Diana with her. The older mulattress was perfectly 
competent to attend to the Professor's simple wants, and 
neither of them had even so much as mentioned poor 
Chrissy, who, bereft of even Diana's grudging superin- 
tendence, would run wilder and more spindle-shanked 
than ever. It had occurred, said the Doctor, to to 
well, who had suggested it, Addie ? Aunt Addie seemed 
vague, but supposed that she had, and he, though uncon- 
vinced, finally supposed so, too. At any rate, it had 
occurred to somebody that the situation would become 
perfectly simplified if Chrissy should go to Nana for the 
winter (Nana had a neat, careful young North-of-Ire- 
land girl as general servant, now she was out at nursing 
so much), and I should move definitely into my old room 
at the Doctor's. This arrangement would be necessary, 

114 



I GROW UP 

inasmuch as there were but two bedrooms in the cottage 
and a tiny cupboard for the little servant. 

It all seemed as simple as bon jour to me, and a great 
thing for Chrissy (we all knew that the yellow-faced 
cook had never loved her), and without a word to Nana, 
even, I moved what few things I kept at the cottage away 
from it, the day that Mrs. Vereker sailed for Jamaica. 
Nana was too busy to leave her case, and I moved out 
of the room I was never to occupy again with as little 
interest as if the seed of my life had not been sown there. 
O youth, youth, youth! 

The Doctor and I drove the Vereker family to the 
wharf to see Mrs. Vereker off. Even the Doctor was 
surprised at the fact that the captain offered to bring 
the schooner to South Warwick harbour for his pas- 
senger nobody had dreamed of such a thing. 

"There must be a good deal of influence at work some- 
where, my boy," he muttered to me, as the gruff captain 
came off his graceful winged craft, cap in hand, to lead 
his languid passenger aboard. There were fruit and flow- 
ers, too, in the spotless little cabin, and it glistened with 
new paint. 

"Ah, Captain Pedgett, this is very kind, I'm sure," 
she said, but she did not appear to be greatly surprised. 
Quite a crowd had assembled to see the big schooner 
start, and Bert, who turned up arm in arm with one of 
his new cronies, a daredevil sort of fellow who sailed 
races for money in his own catboat, whispered to us that 
an awning had been rigged on the deck for her and one 
of the ship's boys told off for her special service. 

"Good-bye, Doctor, many thanks for everything," she 
said ; "good-bye, Chrissy, be a good child and mind Mrs. 
False. Don't bring the dog into the house. Au revoir, 
Christopher; I'll send you some curry put those books 



THE INHERITANCE 

in the cabin, please, boy ! I'll write you when I'm coming 
back." 

The Professor waved his hat gallantly. "Do, my 
dear," he said, "and I shall let you know if I am right 
about that scarab in Bologna. I am confident it is an 
imitation. Say good-bye, Chrissy." 

"Good-bye," said Chrissy awkwardly. "Why do those 
white sheets on the sticks make the boat move, Bert?" 

And thus, her adieux to her family being made, Mrs. 
Vereker sailed away from us, and we never saw her 
again. 

Mysterious woman that she was, did any one know the 
key to her? Was she happy or unhappy, incredibly fool- 
ish or incredibly wise? Was South Warwick, so keen, 
for the most part, at unearthing the odd and interesting, 
a little off its guard in the case of Mrs. Christopher 
Vereker ? I don't know, frankly. But I know that when 
I think of that curious embarking, and recall her as she 
walked gently, with a slight swaying movement, up the 
gangplank on the captain's eager arm, I see her, not as 
she undoubtedly appeared, but as she looked on that day 
seven years back, under the sugar maple, all in flowing 
white, with carbuncles smouldering at her throat and 
ears, and her dark hair rolled high under the high, white 
ivory comb. 

I don't know whether Aunt Addie was most shocked at 
Chrissy's keen interest in her new room at the cottage 
or the Professor's complete forgetfulness of her. Both 
were, at any rate, quite sincere and unaffected. Nana 
had moved into my old room, the smaller of the two, and 
when Bert and I helped Thomas up with the little 
boxes that held Chrissy's pathetic wardrobe and few 
treasures, we all admired the results of the days of 
preparation Aunt Addie had described to us. Out of the 

116 



I GROW UP 

sum the Professor had insisted upon handing over in a 
lump, a gay pink-and-white paper had been put on the 
walls; the prettiest of the pictures from the London 
Graphic, sent regularly to Aunt Addie and begged from 
Bert and me, whose perquisites they were, had been 
framed and hung ; the invaluable Hoppin drawing teacher 
had repainted in charming flowery garlands a set of 
quaint old-fashioned chairs resurrected by Nana from 
somebody's attic ; and there was that delicious coquettish 
purity of snowy curtain and ruffled dressing table that 
women know so well how to produce, when their hearts 
are in it. 

To Chrissy it must have seemed a little paradise, and 
she retired into it without so much as a thank you or a 
good-bye for any of us, an overgrown little figure in a 
frock too tight and childish for her, with wild, stiff hair 
under a bonnet all askew. Even the Doctor noted her 
untended appearance. 

"But we may depend on Mrs. Palse, I am sure, eh, 
Professor?" he said hopefully, and the Professor, jerked 
back from some Egyptian revery, blinked, nodded, and 
agreed generally. 

"Ah, yes, quite as you say, we all depend on Mrs. 
Palse," he replied politely, and walked back alone to 
the Delta of the Nile. 

Nana was never three days together without dropping 
in on us that autumn, for the terrible servant question 
grew worse and worse as Aunt Addie grew more and 
more irritable with her increasing sciatica and rheuma- 
tism, and there was no hand like Nana's for bringing 
order into the kitchen or relief to Aunt Addie's aching 
muscles. I saw her, accordingly, quite as often as if I 
had been living at the cottage, and thus had no occasion 
to go there; and though we never talked for long at a 

117 



THE INHERITANCE 

time, because, naturally, the next-to-head boy at a young 
gentlemen's academy, with German conversation and 
junior discipline on his mind, can have few conversational 
topics in common with his old nurse, we always passed 
the time of day, as Nana said, and it was well under- 
stood that we did, for I have more than once, while 
waiting for some classmate on the hill, heard the 
voice of his Family explaining loudly to Mrs. 
Applegate : 

"Yes just waiting for my son. Mrs. False has been 
looking after my daughter, this time. So sweet, I think, 
and thoughtful of Hugh, never to forget how she used 
to take care of him ! An old family servant, you 
see. . . ." 

And I, blushing a little, could not but feel, neverthe- 
less, that the family voice was right and that I was rather 
thoughtful ! 

Cary had to leave school the year that Hux went up 
to Yale, and crawled restlessly about from bed to sofa, 
passing long, silent days with his face to the wall, irri- 
table and irritating. On his good days he drove about 
with the Doctor and visited the academy, but he could 
not endure the competition with the other boys, and 
seemed to cease growing in every way. We had always 
been good friends, and it was a real distress to me when 
he began to shrink from me or more justly, I believe, 
from the health and activity I could not but contrast with 
his feebleness but with the easy selfishness of my sex 
and age I soon got used to it, and by the winter I had 
almost ceased to see him. 

It was Bert, curiously enough, who took my place, and 
evening after evening as I studied upstairs I would hear 
the old piano or the banjo, for hours together, and knew 
that Bert was giving up his private amusements for his 

118 



I GROW UP 

sickly brother's sake. I say amusements, for Bert had 
long ceased to study at night. His native quickness and 
wonderful memory enabled him to hold a fair, or nearly 
fair, place in his classes, with the minimum of prepara- 
tion, and the teachers, though they shook their heads 
gravely, and held long consultations over him, invariably 
ended with the inevitable laughter at his ingenious ex- 
cuses, his clever parodies, his really brilliant caricatures, 
for he developed at this time a great gift for drawing, 
or his apparently sincere promise of amendment. The 
Doctor had no mercy on him, and raged at his selfishness, 
and selfish, I admit, he was. But the brother whom he 
subdued his quick temper to endure patiently, the friends 
to whom he cheerfully offered his last cent, the animals 
he gave up his sleep to nurse and the tramps who 
smoked his tobacco and pawned his clothes did they 
think him selfish? 

Of course, as Rob pointed out, somewhat acridly, Gary 
was the one member of his family to whom he recognized 
any obligation; the money he loaned his friends was in 
reality his father's; the animals that tagged about after 
him were a public nuisance, and the clothes he gave away 
he could ill spare but . . . whoever loved the Elder 
Brother of the great parable, impregnable in his virtue 
though he be? If only the charming people could be in 
the right since the people who are in the right are so 
seldom charming! 

The Christmas holidays began after school dinner, that 
year, and, coming home quickly, I .paused on the stair 
opposite Aunt Addie's room, attracted by shouts of glee 
from Gary and a feminine voice unknown to me. My 
knock was unheard and I entered before the laugh was 
over. Aunt Addie sat in her great stuffed chair, the book 
she required a pile of cushions to hold (to save her 
9 119 



THE INHERITANCE 

cramped, knotted fingers) forgotten, her face wreathed 
in smiles. Gary, stretched on her sofa, a gay afghan 
over his weak legs, fairly held his sides as Bert pranced 
about the room imitating Mrs. Applegate engaged in po- 
lite conversation with the younger Miss Peyton, who 
never raised her voice in speaking to the deaf, because 
she considered it unladylike. As Mrs. Applegate never 
for a moment admitted that she was deaf, their conver- 
sations were incredible social catastrophes, and scarcely 
required caricature. 

Near Aunt Addie's chair sat a pretty gipsy-like girl, 
whose thick, heavy hair not even the backcomb then 
worn by school girls could deform. Her forehead was 
broad and finely shaped, with a pronounced "widow's 
peak," her eyes mischievous and yet trusty, her full red 
lips well cut, over a square, strong chin. She wore a 
trim dark stuff dress, wine-coloured, with a fresh ruf- 
fled white apron over all, tied back into a crisp bow, and 
even as she laughed aloud, she fitted together bright 
squares of cambric and sewed at them in a notably house- 
wifely fashion. I stared. She had a look of was she 
. . . yes, she was little Chrissy Vereker! With just 
enough of a look of Pippy Crane to catch one's breath 
over. For she was plumpish, like Pippy, a robin red- 
breast of a girl, with a round arm and a broad chest. 

I checked them, but only for a moment, for Bert was 
at his best and irresistible, and Cary good-tempered and 
generous. We talked and laughed till dusk, and the Doc- 
tor joined us and listened to our nonsense, the lines fading 
from his forehead, with Chrissy cuddled in his arm in an 
accustomed manner that amazed me no less than her 
smoothed hair and her sewing. But I had more to learn, 
for " r hen he asked, "Well, chicken, how are the lessons ?" 

1 20 



I GROW UP 

she blushed, and bringing out a little pile of books, 
pointed out map and sum and chapter, while Gary 
straightened and looked important and Bert mocked 
him. 

"Yes, indeed, Hugh, she can ! She learned to read in 
three weeks! And I must say, Robert, if poor Gary 
could teach her all this, it speaks badly for Mrs. Parrot, 
who is not in the least lame !" 

Thus Aunt Addie, luminously, and we all laughed 
again. 

"You see, there was something in Nana's scheme, after 
all," the Doctor put in ; "remember how you all made fun 
of the idea of Gary teaching anybody ?" 

"Didn't suppose I could, myself," Gary admitted lan- 
guidly, "but Chrissy knows a queer lot of stuff you 
wouldn't expect, don't you, Chris ?" 

"What are you reading?" I asked respectfully, and 
Chrissy blushed (she always blushed easily, but faced 
you bravely through it), and handed me the book. It 
was the Mort d' Arthur. 

"Oh! you liked it, then!" I said, and she nodded si- 
lently. 

"Is this my quilt?" the Doctor a sked, fingering the 
bright squares, and she unearthed from her little round 
basket countless others, sewed into quartettes, and laid 
them on his knee. 

"You ought to have had a daughter, Robert," said 
Aunt Addie, and we all nodded soberly, for every lad 
is a father of girls in his deeper heart. 

Nana said she took to her needle like a duck to water 
though, to carry on the simile, no maternal hen could 
have been more surprised at her foster duckling's aquatic 
capacities than Mrs. Vereker would have been at Chris- 
sy's needlework. 

121 



THE INHERITANCE 

"Who will walk home with Chrissy, boys ?" Aunt Addie 
asked presently. "Nana will be anxious." 

Bert and I spoke together, but neither of us could 
have been much surprised when she chose him! 



CHAPTER X 

In Which We Begin to Leave the Nest 

1 WONDER if we were ever all together again after 
that first summer I came home from Yale ? I don't 
think so. There seems to be in most large families 
(I have often remarked it, since, in my professional prac- 
tice) a distinct point where disintegration begins, and 
after that only such crises as weddings and funerals 
bring the scattered units together again. A friend of 
mine put it characteristically enough when he said that 
he never saw the family any more, unless one of his aunts 
died, and everybody present nodded comprehendingly. 

Six of Doctor Crane's boys went to college that year, 
and we formed, naturally enough, a little clique, with 
Bert, from the beginning, the most prominent among us, 
since it was his clever ruse that won us the great sopho- 
more-freshman battle, and made his name known in an 
hour all over the campus. Rob and Hux were half 
proud, half jealous of this meteoric debut, and both of 
them discussed with me the probability of its turning the 
boy's head and being bad for him in the end, but I don't 
think it was. Publicity always steadied him, and the 
fact that he had entered his classes under heavier condi- 
tions of incompleted work than Dr. Crane usually al- 
lowed and the strictest promises to make up the deficien- 
cies, kept us closer together than I had dared to hope 
we should be. Except for a few outbreaks of boyish, 
undergraduate vandalism and a few unfortunate wine 

123 



THE INHERITANCE 

suppers, we got him through the year very well, and the 
Doctor met him with a hearty handshake at Christmas. 

How delightful that winter holiday was ! The dressing 
of our little church had grown, in the last few years, into 
a curious little social function curious, in that the young 
people of Warwick's "first families," without regard to 
creed, had come to consider it as their duty and privi- 
lege to decorate St. Matthews' from altar to font (in 
that church, the font stood at the entrance) with the 
choicest of cedar, holly and mistletoe. There was a tacit 
but well-formulated age limit, and girls of fifteen waited 
eagerly till next Christmas, and girls of much more than 
twenty openly regretted that their time was past. More 
than this there was, bien entendu, a caste limit, and woe 
to the forth-putting maiden who offered her services, un- 
solicited, for the occasion. Not that the elect were solic- 
ited far from it. There was no doubt in their minds 
"they knew," as Pippy Crane explained succinctly to me, 
on the occasion of Miss Susy Farwell's boarder's daugh- 
ter. That was a slightly contested field, for we boys 
rather "took to" the boarder's daughter, and had skated 
with her on the millpond and danced the Mother Goose 
lancers with her in the great "Kermess" held in the 
town hall for the benefit of the prospective South War- 
wick hospital. She had been Little Bo Peep in those 
lancers, and most bewitching she was with her crook and 
short skirts. 

Somebody had told her about those evenings of tying 
and bunching and wreathing, Christmas week, with carol 
practice later, and hot coffee and cake after that, and 
she had interpreted Mr. Applegate's brisk little public an- 
nouncement quite literally and came, bright and early, of 
a Monday night. And the very girls who had rehearsed 
the lancers with her and served with her at the candy 

124 



WE BEGIN TO LEAVE THE NEST 

booth at the Christmas cake sale in the First Church, 
those very girls, I say oh well, you know what girls are, 
don't you? How they can be so ... so trying, is hard 
for us to see. The gooseflesh fairly stood out on my 
spine while Miss Farwell's boarder's daughter learned 
her little lesson that Monday night. 

It was Bert, finally, who took her home haughtily and 
invited her for a moonlight sleigh ride, and didn't come 
back to the church that night. Not that this did the poor 
girl much good in the end, because, unfortunately, after 
he'd deposited her at Miss Susy's at half past ten, he hap- 
pened to meet Fanny Pratt, and started out with her 
again and didn't bring the sleigh back to the livery stable 
till one. Fanny was just cruel enough to let the confused, 
whispering gossip go on without clearing the matter up, 
and finally there had to be a distinctly disagreeable meet- 
ing, where Bert and the Doctor and Miss Susy's boarder 
"had it out" and straightened things as far as the board- 
er's daughter went, anyhow. Nobody tried to straighten 
poor Fanny's affairs by now, I'm afraid, and when the 
innocent (travelling) manager of the Kermess suggested, 
for the roller-skating quadrille, "that tall, handsome Miss 
Pratt, that skates so well," there was an uncomfortable 
silence and a change of subject that even the boys didn't 
resent. 

Poor Fanny Pratt ! Was hers one of the cases of which 
there must be just so many, and did she happen to be 
the one in South Warwick ? Sometimes I have thought 
so. Perhaps in a larger city or a smaller village she 
would have settled to one level or another more certainly. 
As it was, no one, just then, had definitely pronounced 
the ultimate adjective in Fanny's case. But when we 
boys skated with her Tuesdays and Fridays, when the old 
Odd Fellows' hall was turned into a rink, and the roll 

125 



THE INHERITANCE 

and click was like the surge of the shore, and the band 
played till midnight (though nice girls left at ten), when, 
I say, we swayed by, cross-linked with Fanny, we didn't 
nod to the hill girls ; and when we tore down the tobog- 
gan slide with her scarlet cap and stylish blanket coat 
packed in front of us, we didn't wave to them. 

Fanny was named after Miss Fanny Bragg, and wore 
a gold locket with a pearl in it presented at her christen- 
ing by that lady. She wore, too, a silver bangle hung 
with ten-cent pieces, each with an engraved monogram 
on it, and this bracelet might have been used, as far as 
the male youth of South Warwick went, for a Blue Book 
of the town! Ten cents was little to give and Fanny 
had such an attractive, thick-lashed smile ! Her eyes 
were a very dark blue, and the lashes as thick as a paint 
brush and curly at the ends. She sold so many sub- 
scriptions to the Christian Herald that she won the first 
premium of a lady's safety bicycle easily, in advance of 
all other competitors, and rode it like a darting swallow. 
(How we laughed at those first "safeties," by the way! 
Bert and I, perched high on our old-style "bikes," har- 
assed the prim young bank cashier on his, the first man 
in the town to use the new-fangled low one, till he sold 
it, out of very shame!) 

She was of that social stratum her mother was a 
dressmaker where the girls, in those days, never 
dreamed of undertaking any trade or profession after 
they left school, and so, after she had attended to a few 
negligible household duties, Fanny's time (her mother 
worked sixteen hours a day) was her own to the regret 
of some other mothers of Warwick! 

Well, well! As I look back at it all, she appears no 
Delilah, but a simple-minded, pleasure-loving, easy-going 
girl, with no education in particular and a heart too soft 

126 



WE BEGIN TO LEAVE THE NEST 

for her own good. She made delicious peanut taffy and 
cocoanut cake, and if the light in the Pratt parlour burned 
beyond the ordinary reception hours of young ladies, 
why, everybody knew that Mrs. Pratt was up, sewing, in 
the room above. 

Miss Fanny Bragg was often appealed to, to "do some- 
thing about it," and always replied nervously that if Mrs. 
Palse had only had that idea of the Girls' Friendly So- 
ciety a year or two earlier, and if Fanny had only not 
been Roman Catholic, it might have been different ! And 
perhaps it might. 

Chrissy, of course, was much too young for such 
junketings as church dressing and roller skating, 
and passed her time, we found out at Easter, mostly at 
the Doctor's doing lessons with Gary, holding wool, and 
going errands generally for Aunt Addie, and reading to 
the Doctor, evenings, when he was free ; a practice under- 
taken as a test of proficiency at first and continued from 
sheer pleasure to both, after the tests were no longer nec- 
essary. The Doctor was a profound lover of Dickens and 
read little else in the way of fiction. It had not always 
been convenient to take her home after these sessions, 
and during one fortnight in March when Nana was tak- 
ing the rising generation of Bankses through the measles, 
Chrissy had proved such a pleasant guest that the visit 
had extended indefinitely and the little guest room being 
really too small for her trunk and books and work table, 
the trunk, as the least important, was carried to the attic 
and stayed there for four years ! 

We found her music roll on the hat stand, her stout 
arctic overshoes in the vestibule, her sun hat in the hall, 
and her old dog, a little irritable and rheumatic now, 
lying on the sunny side porch. 

"And really, boys, I don't know what your father 
127 



THE INHERITANCE 

would do without her now," Aunt Addie confided to us. 
"If Mrs. Vereker ever comes back, he'll miss her ter- 
ribly. You see, there's no one now but poor Gary, and 
he's so quiet that the house seems empty without her. 
You boys were a trouble, goodness knows, but at least 
you were alive!" 

Yes, yes, we were alive. And houses that once have 
echoed to that life seem ghostly and drear without it 
even to nervous, middle-aged, spinster aunts ! The halls 
were clean and clear, now, and it was some use painting 
the dining room, and the porch chairs came in when it 
rained, and white mice, turtles, rabbits and mongrel pups 
no longer wandered casually into the drawing room 
(South Warwick said "parlour," but Aunt Addie and 
Nana simply couldn't change.) But I really believe the 
Doctor and Aunt Addie would have welcomed even the 
turtles, to have us back! 

Chrissy had dropped her pinafores and her dresses 
were quite to her boot tops, she was so large for her age, 
and her thick hair no longer needed the round comb and 
flowed smoothly back into a net. She was like any other 
young girl, in short, except for one curious, great differ- 
ence: she seemed utterly unconscious of her sex. Of 
course, we didn't call it that, because we weren't suffi- 
ciently wise or analytical, and anyway "sex" wasn't a 
word much in use in Warwick in the early '8o's. It was 
an odd sort of expression, as Aunt Addie said, and not 
exactly of the sort one would care to be quoted as having 
used. Not, of course, that it was necessarily . . . but, 
in short, it was just as well not. 

(Lord, Lord ! If poor Aunt Addie could hear Hux's 
eldest girl on the social evil! And everything she says 
true, too!) 

Well, we only knew that Chrissy didn't giggle, but 

128 



WE BEGIN TO LEAVE THE NEST 

laughed out, as a boy does ; that she never dropped her 
eyes, but looked straight at you; that her step was free, 
from the hip, and her grip tight and quick; that she 
never said those innocent-appearing things that as soon 
as you answer them tell what you didn't intend in short, 
that her mind was more like our own. Her mental proc- 
esses, I should have said, not her mind. For after all, 
boys of nineteen, even reasonably decent ones, would 
hardly allow that a nice little girl of thirteen who had 
never been to college could have their minds imputed to 
her dear little innocence. Our speech, at that epoch, was 
rather like those twisted old-fashioned glass flasks that 
pour, according as you wish, oil or vinegar, and we took 
a great deal of satisfaction in turning the flask to suit 
the social situation. Just as we enjoyed a man-of-the- 
worldish game of pool in the parlour over Abey Fox's 
father's saloon, with some of Bert's old livery-stable 
friends and a commercial traveller or two ("drummers" 
we called them), and then settled the score, had a glass 
of beer, and sauntered out in time for clean clothes and 
a shave we each had our mug and brush at the barber's 
and were shaved by one of "the fish monger's twins near 
the pond" in time for dinner with Mrs. Crane, and told 
Pippy and Dossy how well the New Haven girls danced ! 
Dossy was at her loveliest she must have been about 
twenty-two, and I taught her a new schottische myself, 
after dinner, with her mother contentedly looking on and 
Bert playing the banjo to Lulu, who was just about to 
capture Fortunatus and was the best dancer except Bert 
and Fanny Pratt in Warwick. Had Lulu been twenty 
to-day, she would have been pirouetting in classic drapery 
(or out of it) to enraptured audiences after dinner par- 
ties ; but at that time her parents would never have 
dared to show their faces in the streets of Warwick if 

129 



THE INHERITANCE 

any child of theirs had dreamed, in the secret recesses of 
her chamber, of perpetrating such pas seuls as Miss Hop- 
pin's successor undoubtedly offers in her curriculum to- 
day! Autres temps, we can assure you, dear nieces, 
autres mceurs, and perhaps the girls are all the same, 
always, at heart, as Horace, or somebody equally classic, 
has undoubtedly said, but they, are certainly vastly dif- 
ferent at foot and ankle from generation to generation ! 

That summer, as I said before, somewhere, found us 
all together, for one delightful season, before the begin- 
ning of the end that is, after all, just life. People can't 
go on picnics and moonlight sails and clam-bakes and 
hotel "hops" for ever, and of course they don't want to. 
But what fun they were ! 

Chrissy developed a perfect genius for planning, engi- 
neering, commissarying and transporting these affairs, 
and as she never expected the least share in what would 
ordinarily be considered the pleasures of them, from a 
girl's point of view, always going ahead with Thomas and 
the hampers and driving home with the Doctor, whom 
she often persuaded to come (people aren't so sick in the 
summer in the country, anyhow), she was quite popular, 
in a quiet, maiden-auntish sort of way, and loaned hair 
pins and hat pins and safety pins and plain pins, talked 
to shy boys, amused little sisters and brothers, washed up 
and boiled the kettle generally. 

Bert picked out the place and time, Rob attended to 
the invitations, crossing out many of Bert's invites (for 
Rob was by now distinctly a bit of a snob) and Gary 
delivered the messages over the new telephone (which 
many people in Warwick didn't know how to use, frankly, 
and tied up during thunder storms!). 

Gary was admittedly incurable, now, and used a crutch. 
Teaching Chrissy was his one interest, and by that sum- 

130 



WE BEGIN TO LEAVE THE NEST 

mer he actually had her up to her graded age in the pub- 
lic school in everything, and beyond it, in some branches. 
It opened my eyes, even then, to the immense amount of 
time wasted in all routine, mass work, and the little 
amount gained by each individual child under ordinary 
school conditions. Ever since then I have been less im- 
pressed by the phenomenal progress made by those phe- 
nomenal children when taught by devoted enthusiasts; 
for Chrissy was not particularly intellectual and never 
loved books for themselves. But she had a pathetic de- 
sire to be like other people, and a great deal of pride, 
and these, with the entire attention of an interested tutor, 
on his mettle, carried her on with amazing strides. 

What baskets she packed! Breasts of chicken, sand- 
wiched into Norah's Parker House rolls; little brown- 
rimmed tarts, each with a slice of cheese wrapped in with 
it ; ham, minced with home-made pickles, spread on Bos- 
ton brown bread; sheets of yellow sponge cake; dozens 
of soft, moist, enormous molasses cookies, to be eaten 
with "pot cheese," packed into egg shells; lemonade, all 
mixed but the water, and Mrs. O'Shaugnessy's root beer 
that frothed all over one's trousers when it was opened 
I wonder we had breath to sing as we did, when the moon 
came up ! 

First we went in bathing, laughing meanwhile at the 
wagonloads of country people (real country, from the 
hills behind the coast) who romped into the water in old 
skirts and trousers, with straw hats tied on and a terrible 
fear of wetting their hair. They thought our modest 
bathing suits indecent and said so loudly, and we felt 
amused and cosmopolitan and dived from the spring- 
board, trod water, and smoked cigarettes while swim- 
ming, to impress them. They screamed and squawked 
and jumped up and down in the water, and we imagined 



THE INHERITANCE 

them on Broadway, with that sort of hair cut, and prac- 
tised overhand strokes. 

Chrissy, by the way, was with us here, swimming out 
with Bert, our best diver and under-water performer, 
and leaving every one else behind. She never walked into 
the water, like the other girls, but went off from the end 
of the pier. 

Then in again, to the row of stuffy, tarry little bath 
houses, two at a time, towelling and puffing, to emerge 
damp-haired and dying of hunger, and find the beach fire 
at just the right stage of embers, the coffee breathing 
Araby the blest, the plates and cups in place, and Chrissy 
directing Bert as to the courses. 

While we flirted and smoked, full fed, she attended to 
the affairs that Thomas couldn't manage, saw that the 
Doctor had a coat to sit on, and dropping down near 
him added her sweet, deep alto to the choruses we sent 
up to those placid stars that have watched so many young 
picnickers come and eat and sing and go away again. 
They shone down over Cemetery Point, those same equal- 
minded stars, and perhaps saw less difference between its 
inhabitants and us than we would have relished. 

We sang a song that began : 

"There is a tavern in the town, 

(In the town!) 
And there my true love sits him down 

(Sits him down!)" 

and another, a beautiful German harmony: 

"Forsaken, forsaken, forsaken, am I" 

that I can't hear now without a twist of the heart, but 
sang out gaily enough then and, 

"How can I bear to .leave thee," which was a little 
132 



WE BEGIN TO LEAVE THE NEST 

too much the good-bye soldier song of the 6o's for those 
parents who came late to bring some of us home, so 
that they coughed and felt for their pockets and listened 
to us longer than they meant. 

Our songs were sad, mostly about lovers who never 
came back and friends who were parted will any one 
tell me why ? but we were not sad ; oh, dear, no ! Now, 
it seems to go the other way. . . . 

And Lulu Crane looked at Bert's handsome profile, 
thrown back as he sang in his charming barytone, and 
Dossy sat near Rob, who didn't sing, and Hux and I 
threw in a casual bass and Pippy and a summer boarder 
at Miss Hoppin's led the tune in two of the sweetest 
sopranos I ever heard. Hux thought so, too, for he 
sang carefully at the summer boarder. And Miss Pey- 
ton, there by sufferance, wished Bert hadn't been so wild 
and the Doctor was grateful he hadn't been any wilder, 
and I begged Pippy to wear my college pin till autumn, 
anyway, and Thomas said the horses had stood long 
enough. 

So we sang ourselves home, and Bert, fully intending 
to go out again after we were all settled, went softly in 
to kiss Aunt Addie good night Aunt Addie, whose heart 
would be heavy if she knew he was going out again, 
but would forgive him anything for that kiss ! 

Ah, well . . . 

"Good night, ladies, 
Good night, ladies, 
Good night, LADIES. 
We're going to leave you now!" 

It's over, all over, and life is fuller now, and deeper- 
but oh, how happy it all was ! 



CHAPTER XI 

In Which I Go to Find My Inheritance 

IT was just a year to a day from the date of our 
happiest beach picnic that summer (the picnic when 
Pippy Crane let her warm, competent hand lie 
under mine on the firm sand, all through the endless 
verses of that absurdly haunting song wherein we ex- 
plained to each other how, when, where and why we were 
"seeing Nellie home") ; just one year, exactly, and I 
was tramping the deck of what we called "a great ocean 
liner" in those unsophisticated times. 

There was, to be sure, a difference between this boat 
and the one that had brought me to America. It was 
bigger, it travelled faster, and there was a little more 
ceremony observed as to the serving of meals and the 
order of the day, generally. But we still felt conscious 
of taking a great step, and were distinctly brothers in 
adventure, and consequently friendly, a priori. And 
we still wore our oldest clothes (even older than we kept 
for travelling, when we "got there" oh, yes, madam!), 
and those of us who were male assumed yachting caps, 
and those of us who were female presented a vastly dif- 
ferent appearance from the dashing young person nomi- 
nally under Hux's authority, whom Aunt Chrissy "went 
in" to "see off" the other day. Indeed, that oldest girl 
of Huxley's has a vastly different appearance, generally, 
from the strong-minded type of the early '8o's. 

"Strong-minded and well-dressed, eh ?" says our grate- 
ful friend of the many motors (who took me to see old 

134 



I GO TO FIND MY INHERITANCE 

Diana, you remember). "Oh! well, God help the men, 
that's all !" 

The reason for my being on this "great ocean liner" 
(with due apologies to the Mauretania) was not 
at all what you may have supposed. In my last year at 
Crane's an English boy had come to the academy to be 
fitted for Yale, the son of a Londoner who had drifted 
to Canada, in the typical English fashion, liked it, formed 
business connections in the States, grew enthusiastic over 
the American business methods (so pleasant, when one 
profits by them!) and decided to bring his boy up to 
be an out-and-out Yankee. The boy's name was, oddly 
enough, Gordon Hughes, and such a coincidence, plus 
the fact that he was a pleasant fellow enough, and had 
travelled more than the rest of us, which made his talk 
interesting, drew us together, and he became one of that 
little coterie at the university that Bert made so famous. 
He was twenty-one that summer, and very proud of his 
father's confidence in entrusting him with some private 
commissions in London, besides the duty of looking up 
various god-parents and grandmothers and such like in- 
the provinces. 

"Why don't you come along, too, Hughie?" he had 
suggested (we were always "Hughie" and "Hughesy" to 
each other and the boys had taken it up). "Wouldn't 
your governor allow it ? Mine told me I could take any 
one of the fellows along granny's so used to a lot of 
fellows, you know ; I've eight uncles and my aunt wants 
to see a real Yankee boy. Wouldn't you like it ?" 

Wouldn't I? I'd ask the Doctor. He'd know about 
the money. And as to the absurdity of my being a rep- 
resentative Yankee boy, you must believe that it never 
struck me ! 

The Doctor agreed heartily with Aunt Addie that it 

10 135 



THE INHERITANCE 

would be a fine chance for me, and personally lugged 
down from the attic his great bag (did we call it a "Glad- 
stone" then? I think so), and said that my allowance 
would cover it, he was sure, only no nonsense, mind, for 
I was no Crcesus. 

"Oh, no, of course not," I said vaguely (you must 
remember that I got my allowance cheque every month, 
with the other boys, and endorsed it, like them, in much 
the spirit of Elijah endorsing the ravens' performances). 

Later he called me into the office and handed me a 
slip of much-figured paper. 

"I know you're pretty steady, Hugh, so I don't mind 
showing you this : you'll see you really have 'more than 
we thought I don't see why you shouldn't run into a 
thousand dollars for the trip, if you want to travel a 
little. Or even more. Things might come up, you 
know." 

Oh, yes, things might come up. I agreed with him 
thoroughly. 

"And as Addie says, you could lay in some clothes. 
There's no doubt they're cheaper, and she says they're 
better. I don't know much about that. 

"You see, Hugh" (how sweet that deprecating, quiz- 
zical smile of his was ! Hux had it, a little, and I think 
that was why I almost liked Hux) ; "you see, I'm no 
business man, this way. The only thing I ever had a 
particle of money-sense about is real estate. I must say 
I have a nose for that ! But when I took over your af- 
fairs I let that bank at Hartford manage it, more or less. 
It was just the monthly cheque and your expenses, you 
know. And so, I just drew on the account, instead of 
Nana. You always appear to be solvent. . . ." 

His smile saddened, and I knew by that almost uncom- 
fortable telepathy that afflicts (and blesses) families, that 

136 



I GO TO FIND MY INHERITANCE 

he was thinking of poor Bert. Ah, well, it takes all sorts 
to make a world, as Nana used to say; and that, like 
many and many a cant phrase, is the very bedrock of 
truth, when you brush away the cobwebs that custom has 
staled it with. We know nothing of any other sort of 
world, after all, do we? And yet we act and talk as if 
there were some one, really normal sort of person, one 
clear type, as describable as a "mammal," say, or a "ver- 
tebrate" ! 

"It looks to me as if Nana must have saved a good 
deal in those first years," said the Doctor thoughtfully, 
"and, of course, she could have. She was a great mana- 
ger. By the way, have you told her you're going?" 

No, I hadn't thought of it. But she'd soon be "up at 
the house," probably, though of course she didn't come 
nearly as much as she used, and of course she'd be de- 
lighted. Being English, herself, you know. 

"Ye-es," the Doctor agreed doubtfully. "But you know 
you're English, too, Hugh." 

I smiled, and said I knew it, but I never felt so, some- 
how, and he nodded and looked thoughtful again. 

"It would be pretty hard on us all if you had to 
go back there, after all, wouldn't it, Hughie?" he said 
suddenly. 

"Go back? But I wouldn't, I won't!" I cried. "Why, 
who could make me, Doctor ?" 

"Well, I don't know . . . there might be some inher- 
itance business . . . well, we'll know very soon. Of 
course, there's no use pretending that your guardians 
over there, whoever they may be, have any particular 
affection for you, Hugh. Evidently there's no pretence 
of it. There's plenty of money, and it's paid regularly, 
and that's all. With both parents dead you never even 
saw your mother, I understand?" 

137 



THE INHERITANCE 

"No, Doctor." 

"Nor your father?" 

I shook my head. 

"And not even any report demanded of your health 
or progress or studies Addie tells me there's never been, 
and certainly there hasn't been since I signed the quar- 
terly receipts it looks as if what relatives there were 
were only interested in bare justice. Now, of course, 
with everything as open and aboveboard as it is, and the 
solicitor I deal with who he is he's Geddie, you know, 
handles all Professor Vereker's wife's business : Vereker 
can't speak too highly of him and with Nana what she 
is and so devoted to your family, why, of course, we know 
that everything's . . . oh, well, it's not the American way 
of doing things, certainly, but, as Addie says, there may 
be only too many reasons why you wouldn't be too wel- 
come to whoever's holding your place till you're twenty- 
one, Hugh, my boy !" 

The dear Doctor ! There has never been a doubt in my 
mind that my adopted countrymen constitute the most 
romantic nation in the world. 

"Of course, my boy," he went on, looking at me di- 
rectly, "I wouldn't for the world force your confidence, 
and you may know more than I of your prospects " 

"Me, sir!" I cried eagerly, "why, I always supposed 
you and Aunt Addie knew more than I did ! You know 
Aunt Addie always said that when I was twenty- 
one " 

"Yes, yes, I know," he interrupted hastily; "and I 
must tell you, my boy, that it's my belief your Aunt 
Addie thinks she knows more than she does! It's all 
come over me since this European trip of yours came up, 
somehow. To tell you the truth, Hugh, we none of us 
know anything, and that's the end of it. Nana is the 

138 



I GO TO FIND MY INHERITANCE 

only one that knows, and her instructions are evidently 
perfect silence. As Addie says (how we all fell back 
on Aunt Addie, try how we might !) it's more than likely 
that the whole allowance ceases if the conditions are 
broken don't you see ?" 

I nodded comprehensively. 

We both looked very wise, but how we could have 
explained the equity of this arrangement, outside of a 
melodrama, passes my comprehension, to-day ! Although, 
to do him justice, some inkling of this must have come 
over the Doctor's mind, for he added musingly : 

"And, I must say, it would have been highly irregular 
and dangerous to have trusted so young a child, with 
such prospects, to any ordinary servant, Hugh. I must 
say that. But as Addie points out, any arrangement sanc- 
tioned by Geddie, is, of course . . . indicates that . . . 
well, they knew Nana thoroughly, of course. Eighteen 
years in the family, as she admitted to Addie. And as 
your Aunt Addie puts it, any one who has lived as long 
in London as she has, knows the character of Geddie's 
clients. That alone, as she says ..." 

"Of course," I said briefly, trying to speak maturely 
and not to show how curiously excited and stirred I was, 
all at once. The consciousness of a family solicitor whose 
very name was a Rock of Gibraltar of importance and 
definite position, known to many, and making my small 
affairs important and definite, and known to many, in 
their turn, utterly aside from my personality, rushed 
over me, and I became from that moment like a girl that 
has once been loved, or a lad that has lost his first inno- 
cence, never the same again. Even the well-known fact 
of Nana's allegiance took on, of a sudden, a new light 
to my opened eyes. 

"Eighteen years in the family!" 

139 



THE INHERITANCE 

That she had been eighteen years in my service, was 
of course, but eighteen years in the family! Such feudal- 
ism was not, in South Warwick, in the '8o's. 

"And then, of course, one must remember," the Doc- 
tor went on, thinking backward, "that you came to us 
so soon that Nana really had the entire responsibility 
only a very little while." 

"Of course," I murmured again. O Aunt Addie, Aunt 
Addie! Who brought Nana and me to "us"? Tell me 
that! 

"And I hope, Hugh, my boy," the Doctor concluded, 
rising from his leather pivot chair and holding out his 
hand, "I hope you feel that we've done our best by 
you however things may turn out. It's hard to 
realise that you're not one of my own boys : I wish you 
were." 

"Th-thank you, Doctor," I stammered briefly. I could 
say no more, for I found my lips were twitching, but we 
took hands tightly, and no son of his father's loins could 
have felt more than I felt at that moment, I'll swear, for 
the Doctor. 

He blew his nose abruptly and sat down again. 

"That's all, I think, then," he said, with the shyness 
Americans always have at such points, "except that I 
think I ought to remind you, Hugh, not to think of hunt- 
ing Geddie up. I understand from Addie that any at- 
tempts of that sort must wait, for a year and a half. 
After that, of course " 

"Oh, after that ..." I repeated, pursing my lips in 
a manner calculated to win even Mr. Geddie's well- 
weighed approval, "after that. . . ." 

I went out in a sort of dream, and amazed Chrissy, 
coming in for her nightly Dickens, by calling her "littk 
woman" and remarking that "we were growing fast, 

140 




" 'I hope you feel that we've done our best by you.' " 



I GO TO FIND MY INHERITANCE 

these days !" It seemed to me I was of another genera- 
tion, simply. It was as if I felt another and older civili- 
sation in my blood; thicker-layered, deeper-rooted, with 
winding, cross-currents running far underground (mixed 
metaphors, these!) quite unknown to the simple, open- 
book life of this community of no privacies. I felt, sud- 
denly, what the Professor meant when he insisted that 
every one in America was like every one else. My school 
fellows, now: any one of their lives was the pattern 
of the others. Who of them had my sealed history? No 
open book there! 

Little turns of speech of Aunt Addie, dropped on stony 
ground, took root and flowered all at once. 

"But of course in Hugh's case, it's different. . . . 
I don't know if that would be suitable for Master Hugh, 
Nana? . . . Nonsense, Robert and Huxley, Hugh has 
always had a room to himself ! . . . Now, my dear Hugh, 
don't, whatever you do, neglect your French you may 
live to regret it bitterly, some day !" 

And so on, and so on ... I seemed to see, darkly, 
as in a glass, what she meant, now. And it stirred my 
blood and clouded my brain and set my heart a-tingle for 
that ocean liner! 

Nana didn't happen to drop in for some time, for South 
Warwick was thick in plans for its new hospital, and 
she was in the very centre of it all, trying from her vast 
experience of ways and means to make out a budget of 
possible running expenses, and laying personal levies 
upon all the linen and bedding and sick-room supplies of 
the village. You see, in those benighted days there was 
no science of abstract efficiency, no college of comprehen- 
sive domestic economy, where learned chits instructed 
weary matrons by the book. No: in those dark ages of 
your country, dear madam, only those were supposed to 

141 



THE INHERITANCE 

know life who had lived, and the ships of domestic state 
had women of a "certain age" at the helm. 

But on a hurried visit to the Doctor who, with herself, 
really formed what we had learned to call the "head cen- 
tre" of the hospital board, she took the occasion to wel- 
come me back from college, and learned the great 
news. 

We agreed that she seemed very quiet about it, and 
that her "Yes, indeed, Master Hugh, 'twill make a fine 
change for you," hardly met the occasion. 

"And I've shown him how rich he is, Nana; he's so 
prudent, I'm sure it was all right," said the Doctor jok- 
ingly. 

"Have you, then, Dr. Caldwell? I doubt he's none 
too rich for his needs," she said briefly, and I caught a 
glance from Aunt Addie to her brother that flushed me 
nervously. 

"Well, well, young birds must try their wings," he 
said, "and Hugh's to go as much over a thousand dollars 
on the way to well, say five hundred more, as he thinks 
he needs. He's never once gone over his allowance, 
Nana, and that would leave his next two years all safely 
provided for, besides the nest egg." 

"Anything you say, Dr. Caldwell," she agreed gravely ; 
"you and Master Hugh'll do what's right between you, 
no fear." 

"And, by the way," said the Doctor in a low voice, 
as she followed him into the office, "I gave Hugh a hint 
about not disturbing Mr. Geddie the solicitor, you know. 
I understand it is necessary under the terms of the . . . 
that is to say, he's to wait until he's of age, before 
we . . ." 

"It has always been so meant, sir," she answered 
simply. 

142 



I GO TO FIND MY INHERITANCE 

Truly, as Mr. Applegate never tired of saying, my old 
nurse was a remarkable woman ! 

Did she know where she was sending me to what? 
If I had stopped to think, I must have realised that she 
was the only soul this side of the Atlantic who could 
have known ; if I had stopped to think, I might have won- 
dered at the quick flash of her eye, so soon veiled, and 
the strange yearning depth of her glance at her nurseling, 
her charge for so many faithful years, before he was 
"one of the Doctor's boys." But it was many years 
before I stopped to think. 



CHAPTER XII 
In Which I See Life 

AS I look back on the three months that followed, 
it almost seems that I must be turning the pages 
of some brightly illustrated, gaily bound book, 
with a hero whose sprightly progress through the plot 
interests me indeed, but has no connection with me. Into 
the midst of my quiet, hard-working, and on the whole, 
responsible life, there bloomed this strange and startling 
flower, this exotic, heavy-scented growth of hot-houses 
whose like I shall never, probably, see again. Can I be- 
lieve that I saw them really? Here in my comfortable 
study, I can close my eyes and make an effort of the 
will, and can see, behind my shut lids, the book-lined 
walls rise and spread and gleam with tooled morocco and 
aureate edges, and divide into embrasures for marble 
busts and ivory carvings, and veil their edges in wine- 
coloured velvet. My humble leather chairs turn into 
carved oak and tapestry ; my man, who but now brought 
me in some logs from the stable, swells into a majestic, 
white-calved creature with a powdered head and divides 
into many of his kind ; the rain trickling down the eave 
pipe is the fountain in the great conservatory that offers 
one door to this metamorphosed library, and the gentle 
echoes of a piano through two walls is the distant waltz 
from the great ballroom. 

I am in twelve-guinea evening clothes with a white 
rose and a bit of maidenhair in my buttonhole, and the 

144 



I SEE LIFE 

feet that tap to the waltz measure are in trim, varnished 
pumps. And if I am a little flushed and if the waltz 
sings a little giddily in my young ears, am I the only 
youth that night in London of whom this can be said ? 
For the hot mutton and iced water of Connecticut are 
far behind me now, and steadier heads than mine have 
capitulated to the Burgundy of that princely host of 
mine! 

And, mark you (for this is the wonder of it all), no 
salmon in the sea, no hawk in the air, felt ever more at 
ease and accustomed in his element than I in this gilded 
whirl of London in the Season. If I had experienced any 
strangeness, any consciousness of another standard of 
living, it was not here, but in the noisy, comfortable, pro- 
vincial house of Hughes' grandmother, whose married 
daughters managed the house for her and kept her (as 
she said, with a sly wink at me) from getting dull and 
prosy. 

There were croquet and even archery contests (shades 
of the squash court, forgive these antediluvian lapses!) 
on that estate ; there were fat ponies and sleek bays, and 
a grapery, and friendly, chattering girls in pink and blue 
there was, from the South Warwick point of view, lux- 
ury and a notable ease of life. And yet, from the mo- 
ment I paid off my cab at the door, saw my new leather 
box started up the side stairs, tossed away my cigarette 
and strolled out through the shrubbery, studying my new 
tweeds appreciatively and flicking my new flexible stick 
against my new straw hat (for I was new from top to 
toe), from that moment, I say, a faint, unclassified feel- 
ing that had lain dormant up till now, back, back in my 
brain, suddenly cleared into definite shape, and I knew 
that the attitude I was holding toward Hughesy and his 
happy, prosperous kin was tolerance. Just that. Heaven 

145 



THE INHERITANCE 

knows why, but, contrary to what you might expect, I 
didn't care a button what they might think of me, and 
I knew as soon as I had met them that they were not a 
little interested in what I thought of them. 

"Heartily glad to see you, my boy, heartily !" cried an 
expansive Uncle Hughes, beaming at me over a dazzling 
white waistcoat, "been looking forward to it ever since 
you reached London, haven't we, mamma ? Glad to show 
you any simple hospitality in our power of course, we're 
plain people, you know, plain people! But I have a 
little claret I'd have warranted before you were born 
ha! Girls, where are you? Here's Gordie's friend 
from the States come, now, look alive ! England's 
honour, you know mustn't let the Yankee girls 
beat us!" 

I bowed gravely. The girls were all blonde, and large 
and high coloured and their mammas and aunts were 
rustling and gold chained and braceletted. 

"It's very good indeed of you, Mr. Gordon, to give 
us a few days," said the principal mamma, "and I assure 
you we appreciate it: we know that your time here has 
many claims upon it, don't we, girls?" 

Again I bow deprecatingly "Not at all, oh, not in 
the least." 

"Ah, but we know better, you see! Gordie couldn't 
but tell us. He was so surprised he'd no idea you knew 
anybody, you see, anybody at all, to say nothing of . . ." 

"Oh, bother it all, auntie, I say! Hughie's all right 
if we're not grand enough for him he can cut away, that's 
all. Come on, Hughie, I think my nicest cousins are over 
on the croquet lawn." 

Are you rubbing your eyes, O puzzled reader, at these 
unaccountable allusions? Do you detect in the simple 
British merchant a little tendency, not wholly absent from 

146 



I SEE LIFE 

his ilk, whose raison d' etre you're at a loss to explain? 
To understand it, and me, at this stage, you must go 
back a little. 

Professor Vereker had entrusted to me a certain very 
precious scarab, which was on no account to leave my 
person until I delivered it safely to another professor with 
an absolutely unpronounceable German name, at the Brit- 
ish Museum. Dr. Crane's boys had a pretty fairly de- 
served reputation for useable German, and everything the 
Other Professor (as I invariably styled him) should an- 
swer to my list of questions to be read from the paper 
I was to copy faithfully and guard as the apple of my 
eye. The scarab was then to be carried to Major (now 
Colonel) Protheroe, at the Sirdar Club, with a letter of 
instructions and what he was to do with it in Egypt, 
where he was going in the autumn, only he and the Pro- 
fessor knew. 

We stepped out into a bright London morning (at 
least, Hughesy assured me it was bright) and I, meekly 
piloted by his superior personality, listened respectfully to 
his careless information and thought myself very lucky 
to have such a friend at court. The smoky doors of the 
Sirdar received us, and we waited patiently among the 
filed Indian newspapers and somnolent old gentlemen 
who pretended to read them, absorbing toddies the while, 
staring curiously about us when the liveried pomposities 
were not looking, for I had never been in a club in my 
life. 

Presently the Major (I couldn't think of him as 
Colonel) appeared, looking just as he looked eleven 
years ago, from my point of view, and the letter was de- 
livered, the scarab entrusted, Hughesy introduced, and 
matters appeared to be concluded. 

"Stop a bit," said the Colonel suddenly, looking over 

147 



THE INHERITANCE 

his letter, "it's not possible that you are that little chap? 
Do you remember me ?" 

"Oh, yes, sir, quite well. I don't think you've changed, 
Maj Colonel." 

"God bless my soul! You and the puppy and the 
little girl hey ? And I suppose she's grown, too ?" 

"Yes, sir. She's a great deal changed, too her hair is 
very dark, now." 

"Yes, yes like her mother's. Is she Mrs. Vereker 
in the Bermudas now ? Vereker writes she's gone home 
for a bit." 

"Yes, sir. She's been there quite a while, now." 

"Ah, yes. Yes, yes. . . ." 

His eyes fixed themselves absently on me, under the 
bushy, gray brows, and he fell into a brown study. 

A great handsome man, with iron-gray moustaches, 
shouldered by us and clapped the Colonel on the back. 

"Morning, Frothy! Any news?" 

"We're off by September definitely." 

"Hard luck ! That's the second shooting you've missed, 
I think? Well, well, it's a dog's life, ain't it, Frothy?" 

"Um," said the Colonel noncommitfally. "Here, 
Stacey, see here, who do you think I've got here ? Vere- 
ker 's boy, from the States. You remember Eugenie La 
Febvre, of course ?" 

"Indeed I do. So this is her son? He doesn't look 
like her." 

"No, no, God bless me! It was a girl. No, this is a 
ward of sorts English lad, you see inheritance busi- 
ness stays over there till his majority something like 
that, Gordon, eh? Lord, how it all comes back! I re- 
member that day so plain . . . you were a little shaver, 
then, weren't you?" 

"Yes, Colonel, about nine." 
148 



I SEE LIFE 

"Miss La Febvre married a writing man, didn't she, 
Frothy? Scientific chap?" 

"Yes ; Vereker, the Egyptian authority, you know." 

"Not the Vereker?" 

"That's it. I've a scarab from him that's to go to 
Egypt (entre nous, of course) and upset all the previous 
evidences of of what invasion is it, my boy?" 

I disclaimed any responsibility for this terrible scarab, 
only adding modestly that its results were confidently 
expected to stagger the antiquarian world which, as a 
matter of fact, I believe, they did, ultimately. 

"Well, well, how the years go by!" 

The Colonel puffed out a great sigh. "I never enjoyed 
a meal better than that cook of yours gave us, 
Gordon. Ever tried American lobster, Stacey? And 
that liqueur brandy . . . you must stop, my boy, and 
have a bit of luncheon with me. Talk over old 
times, eh?" 

"No, no, Frothy, wait a bit and lunch with me ; Parra- 
vale's coming in for his tailor my son, you know (to 
me) and the two youngsters can hit it off together. I've 
just sent a saddle in from Staceways very juicy, they 
tell me. Stop and try it and your friend, if he 
will. . . ." 

But Hughesy had to meet one of his principal uncles 
at his club, and excused himself. As he turned to go, re- 
gretfully, I thought, the big military shoulders of "Sta- 
cey" twisted about on his powerful trunk, and he sum- 
moned one of the pomposities. 

"Tell the chef I shall have four, and I'll have some 
of that yellow-label of mine, will you ?" 

"Yes, my lord," said the pomposity bowing, and as I 
escorted Hughesy to the door, officially, we heard the 
pomposity murmur to one of his underlings : 

149 



THE INHERITANCE 

"Look sharp, now Lord Stacey's mutton for four 
and the yellow label at the usual table." 

"Whew! You are going it, aren't you?" and I felt 
a knowing nudge at my elbow. 

"Am I ?" I said innocently ; "it was kind of the Major, 
wasn't it?" 

"Oh, I dare say," and Hughesy gave me an odd, re- 
spectful sort of glance. For, you see, I was perfectly 
unconscious, and that made all the difference. I had 
never met a lord, to be sure, but then, I had never met 
a queen, or an earl, or an archangel. And I had read 
about them all, and "yes, my lord," sounded just as it 
looked in the novels. It was all a sort of play to me, 
and I was only Master Hugh, after all. 

Later, as I discussed the Staceways' excellent South- 
down, opposite a strapping young fellow whose name ap- 
peared to be Patty (he called his father pater, just as they 
did in the novels), Lord Stacey looked at my full glass 
and pursed his lips in mock solicitude. 

"Not up to your famous liqueur brandy, eh ?" he said. 
"I'm afraid your people spoiled the Colonel here." 

"Oh, no, no, sir," I stammered, gulping at it, "it's not 
that, but I'm not used to wine, so very much. I'm sure 
it's delicious." 

"Couldn't please me better, my boy," he answered ap- 
provingly. "It's best saved till later, in my way of think- 
ing. Wish you'd get Patty with you, there ! Hey, Pat ?" 

"Oh, come, now, guv'nor," drawls Pat; "how about 
Tour Bottle Harry' at Trinity?" 

And the old fellows laugh heartily and ask me my 
plans. 

"For Pat might show you about a bit, if you're not 
too busy." 

No, I wasn't busy. I had thought of hunting out a 



I SEE LIFE 

tailor my aunt knew of, if my friend Mr. Hughes had 
time. . . ." 

"Just going to my own rather decent fellow glad to 
take you, if you like," says Patty ; "shall we start ?" 

"That's right, that's right, and why not come to us 
for a bit when Prothy's with us Lady Stacey knew your 
mother, I'm sure didn't she, Prothy?" 

"Yes, indeed, at Bermuda God bless my soul, 

Stacey, this isn't Eugenie's boy, you know hers was a 
girl. This is the little ward-in-chancery boy stopping 
with them, you know. Vereker's much attached to him 
all that sort of thing. The girl's in his guardian's 
family, I believe, while her mother's away that it, my 
boy?" 

"Yes, sir, Chrissy's with us all the time, now." 

"Oh, well, it's all the same call a cab, Biggestow, for 
the young gentlemen (Yes, my lord), and, Pat, your 
mother expects you for dinner in the country, you know." 

"Yes, pater." 

"Taffy isn't quite the thing, this season, so we left 
town early, you know, Prothy, and the women all like it 
so much, by Gad, they don't even come in for the balls." 

"All the same, guv'nor, keep your eye on the Filly 
Thursday fortnight, at our ball!" quoth Patty sagely; 
"you'll find her 'quite the thing,' then, I fancy. Now, 
if you're ready, Gordon. . . ." 

I can see that tailor, now: his manners made a far 
greater impression upon me than Lord Stacey's. 

"One's always taking fellows to tailors that've just 
come back home," Pat vouchsafes. "Queer, after he's 
seen his people, first place a fellow makes for. A cousin 
of mine had a ranch near you, somewhere, and he always 
laid in a stock, first thing." 

"A ranch near me ?" 

11 151 



THE INHERITANCE 

"Colorado, it was. Or are you in the Southern states ? 
They're off Bermuda, aren't they?" 

I gasped. 

"I'm near New York," I said gravely; "there aren't 
many ranches there." 

"I'd give my hat to go there," says Pat gloomily ; "but 
I suppose I'll have to stick by the ship. Two of my 
brothers Lionel and Jerry are going out to my cousin 
next year. He has eight thousand sheep. Ever met him 
Bellew Stacey: tall, dark chap?" 

"N-no. I never went West, Lord Parravale." 

"Oh, chuck it call me Pat, won't you? You know 
the pater was sweet on your mother once, don't you? 
The way I know, he was joking the old Colonel about it 
oh, ages ago, when I was a little chap in knickers. 
He'd just been to the States and seen her for a bit, 
you know, and they were all chaffing him, he was so 
down. 

" 'You've no right to nag me, Stace, old man,' he came 
out, all of a sudden, 'I've seen the poetry you wrote her !' 

"Jove, wasn't there a howl !" 

"But but that wasn't my " 

"Hi! stop, you, cabby! You're 'way out 48, I told 
you, and here it is 79, and I'm late, as it is." 

"Very sorry, sir. . . ." 

I seem hopelessly entangled with the Verekers and 
have a feeling that I shall continue to be. 

The manners of that tailor, so unlike any tailor I 
ever knew, placed me in utter subjection to them, and I 
stood in a tremour of uncertainty as to the proper things 
to do and say to him and his assistant. From the mo- 
ment when he bowed to us, accepted the fact of my ex- 
istence, and expressed himself as enchanted to serve any 
friend of Lord Parravale's, I was as wax in his hands. 

152 



I SEE LIFE 

"William, oblige me by assisting Mr. Hughes-Gordon 
with his coat thank you. William, will you kindly bring 
those sample light-weight tweeds to Lord Parravale's 
friend? William, kindly record these measures of Mr. 
Hughes-Gordon and how does London appear to you, 
sir, after your long absence ? Homelike, I trust ? Many 
Colonial gentlemen have depended upon me for years, 
sir, and even in the event of the measures changing 
slightly (as they will, we all know) I have satisfied per- 
fectly. What is it, William ?" 

For William was murmuring in subdued tones and 
pointing to my distinguished measurements under his 
breath, so to speak. There was a short colloquy. 

"How many, er, to what extent was your friend think- 
ing of ordering, my lord?" 

"Why? What's up, Goodenow ?" 

"It's quite a coincidence, sir, but as I said to Will- 
iam (William, oblige me by sending inside for all of 
the Honourable Mr. Avesham's order), as I said, 'Will- 
iam, mark my words, there will be somebody come along 
that will be glad to get these, and a favor to the family, 
into the bargain.' But I never expected it so soon. You 
heard of poor Mr. Avesham's death, my lord?" 

"Yes, indeed, poor beggar. Hard luck. Walked out 
of a third-story window in his sleep, three days before 
his wedding, Gordon. Nice chap, I believe." 

"Yes, sir. I've attended to the family since he went 
out of kilts, my lord. He had a fancy for everything 
new, do you see some gentlemen have, and a good job 
for their valets, I assure you! I had his whole order 
here they were going to Scotland. As William points 
out, the measures are identical with your friend's, sir, 
identical or as much as makes no matter in the trouser 
length; Mr. Avesham had a shade the longer leg, sir. 

153 



THE INHERITANCE 

Naturally, the family didn't want to see them. Sir Bless- 
ington Avesham forbade me to allow his mother to know 
about them, and I told him to leave everything here, and 
I'd make such an offer to any gentleman as could use 
them, as to dispose of them quick, and only recoup myself 
to the extent of the actual cloth and the making. Would 
you care to see them, sir ?" 

William appeared, staggering under garments, a laden 
underling in the rear. 

"Don't look alarmed, sir, it's the Inverness that bulks 
so. There were three lounge suits and a frock and the 
evening clothes and the riding breeches and the heavy 
morning tweeds and the flannels two, he was a cricketer, 
you'll remember, my lord the light overcoat and the 
smoking jacket. That large box the boy has was the 
body linen. All sent here to be marked. The shirts, the 
very best. The scarfs he picked out the last thing, from 
the shop below. He'd a new box it's in the cutting 
room and it was sent here for his man to pack, for we 
were late with the Inverness. Yes, and a new silver 
cigarette case that he'd specially fancied and picked out 
in Bond Street, it seems, and sent over for us to cut a 
special pocket for, for he fancied the size a little large, 
you see, sir. The bill came with it ... I'd be delighted 
to make you a price, sir, and Lord Parravale will assure 
you that you'll get your money's worth." 

"Great chance, I should say," said Lord Parravale 
promptly ; "why don't you try one on ?" 

"Would you care to try the linen, sir? None of it's 
marked." 

I followed William's respectful becks and nods into 
a private room and emerged in a few moments, a little 
diffident, but perfectly conscious of a highly satisfactory 
result. The cool grey garments of the Honourable Mr. 

154 



I SEE LIFE 

Avesham might have been cut and fitted and sewed with 
my proportions in careful view. 

"And the hips just takes up that length in the leg, you 
see, William!" 

"It's a marvel," vouchsafed William succinctly. 

"And you're dressed for two years, easy, sir. ... I 
would make it (for a friend of yours, Lord Parravale), 
let me see. . . ." 

I had known from the beginning that I should take 
them. 

"Suppose I give you a draft for fifty pounds," I began. 

"Oh, my dear sir don't think of it at your leisure 
Oh, certainly, if you prefer. But pray don't hurry about 
the balance ! And the boxes, sir, I'll send . . . you'll find 
the cigarette case a neat thing, and distinguished, I think 
out of the ordinary. Oh, yes, my lord, Colonial gen- 
tlemen and from America invariably have a great deal 
of money by them. And pay very largely. I've often 
remarked it. Very free they are. They do business in 
a large way, I suppose." 

I could see that Pat was impressed, though he tried 
to hide it with an offhand manner, and insisted on pre- 
senting me with a malacca stick from the shop below, 
"for a wedding present" a callous young thing, Pat! 
I purchased a new straw hat, too, and some grey gloves, 
and strode out into the glimmering London sunshine, for 
the first time in my life, a very glass of fashion. 

We took a new hansom and rode idly along to the Park, 
linked into a strange, factitious intimacy through this 
sudden larkish purchase of my trousseau, as Pat per- 
sisted in calling it; and we got buttonholes from a red- 
cheeked flower girl; and Pat bowed left and right; and 
I could not help thinking that the mammas and daughters 
he bowed to looked at me, too, as they nodded. One of 

155 



THE INHERITANCE 

the mammas signed to Pat with her parasol and told him 
to get her some tea, and he said, "Yes, Lady Kitty, if 
you'll give me a dance Thursday," and she laughed and 
called him a saucy infant and told him she had nearly 
been his godmother, which could hardly have been so, I 
thought, for she was so very beautiful. 

We sat about a little table on the emerald turf, and 
Lady Kitty smiled frankly into my eyes, and told Pat 
to talk to her daughter Aileen, who was sixteen and 
even more beautiful than she, but very shy. 

"I adore Colonials," said Lady Kitty, "they do things. 
Is your friend to be at the ball ?" 

"Sure to," said Pat, full of tea cake ; "he's coming to 
Staceways before that, though. He don't know old Bel- 
lew, though. I don't believe old Bell's very popular, 
Lady Kitty; there's two Americans I know, now, and 
neither of 'em knows him. That man from New Orleans 
didn't, either." 

It seemed to me that the world was one flood of vic- 
torias and satin-shining bays: I had never seen such 
horses. And such beautiful creatures leaned back behind 
them, framed in pale rosy and blue halves of parasols; 
such quiet, contented, distinguished men stood or sat at 
ease, punctuating this flower bed of femininity ; such an- 
gelic blond children called to one another across the vel- 
vet turf in such lovely throaty voices. Ever since that 
day I always think of England as the land where it was 
always afternoon : against all my convictions and habits 
of life, there persists in my recollection of that lotus 
country the feeling that for such a gracious flowering of 
civilisation as Hyde Park, all the roots of England were 
planted ! The great cruel mills ; the wicked black mines ; 
the desolation of other mean, unlovely towns ; the horror 
of the slimy slums that fester at London's vitals ; the sod- 

156 



I SEE LIFE 

den, crippled drunkenness that trails through her arteries 
all these seem a mere tangle of obscure worms beneath 
that jewel-like turf. Nay, in an epicure's conception, 
almost they richened the soil ! 

The glamour of that wonderful old England! She 
has not been kind to me, the Old Mother, and for a time, 
at least, I thought she had broken my heart, but even 
with her cruelty, I felt her charm, her depth, her many- 
sidedness. Her life is like one of those galantines she 
loves so: plunge down into the rich aspic at any point, 
and reach layer after layer of succulence, cross-currents 
of meaty surprises, at every plunge of the inquiring fork. 
And so it has always been that her gorgeous dandies 
lolling through the London afternoons invariably recall 
to me her Raleighs and all the Buccaneers ; those somno- 
lent old majors at the Sirdar bring up to my imagination 
the bronzed, hard-bitten men that hold all India in leash ; 
the flushed and roystering collegians, foolish over the 
punch bowl at Christmas dances, you shall find sweating 
and dogged along the African veldt ; and any one of those 
shy, cake-filled school boys, tow-headed and rough of 
tongue, may be another Shakespeare ! 

You see, now, I hope, why Uncle Hughes spoke as he 
did. 

And when Hughesy called around at the quiet hotel 
in Russell Square to which Aunt Addie had sent me, to 
ask if I would come out to his uncle's that evening, I 
had to put off that pleasure because of a previous en- 
gagement to dine with Lady Kitty Vale-Griffiths at the 
Savoy. 

"I say," observed Hughesy gravely, "but you are go- 
ing it, you know ! And look at our clothes ! Who's our 
tailor?" 

I told him, and he shook his head blankly. 

157 



THE INHERITANCE 

"But there's where the swells go!" he cried. "By 
George, Hughie, you were a swell all the time, and never 
said so!" 

Pat was to have dined with us, but at the last moment 
his mother wouldn't let him off, and I found myself at 
eight o'clock alone with the first lady who ever looked 
deep into my dazzled eyes over a franker expanse of 
creamy skin than I had dreamed a decent woman could 
face the world with. Two little wisps of pale, diapha- 
nous stuff were evidently intended to answer for sleeves, 
and with each dip of her polished breast the old Vale 
sapphires winked and shot out their flames. 

She had coils of blue-black hair, a dusky olive cheek, 
and deep violet, Irish eyes, with a little dancing devil in 
each of them. She had also a gambling old rake of a 
husband, to whom she had been sold at her daughter's 
age sixteen and no more sense of responsibility than a 
lovely panther. 

Now I had never conceived the possibility of such feel- 
ings as Lady Kitty inspired in the breast of susceptible 
youth. I knew one felt so about girls, but in my experi- 
ence, wives and mothers were quite out of the social 
and emotional question. And lo, it was so with me that 
Lady Aileen now appeared a raw young chit, best off in 
her nursery, and her mother that pillar of fire that guides 
each son of Adam, once at least in his life, through his 
sturm und drang in the desert ! 

"Lady Kitty's great fun," Pat had let fall casually, 
"and, my word, she's taken a fancy to you! There are 
two duels on her account everybody knows . . . they say 
young Goggy Gordon Shropshire Gordons, you know 
had to be sent to India on her account. By the by, they 
must be some of your people. Goggy's very fair, like 

158 



I SEE LIFE 

you, and the chin's the same I knew your face was 
natural, somehow." 

Lord Stacey's yellow label still sang in my ears; I 
forgot my prudence; all the simple, unconscious, incuri- 
ous reserve that I had grown up in seemed melting away 
from me in this warm, easy, friendly London, and a re- 
sentful disquiet welled up in its stead. What a ridiculous 
ignorance I had suffered what a childish credulity ! 

"My people aren't any too anxious to claim me!" I 
muttered angrily, "but a man wants something more than 
an allowance, I can tell you, Parravale!" 

"Oh, ... I see, I see," he murmured reflectively, "Sir 
Wilkie's not yearning to take Colonials to his bosom, 
then, . . . well, that is hard luck, old fellow I know 
his nibs, and he's the devil for family rows. All the same, 
blood's thicker than water, and I'd look 'em up, Gordon, 
and take the chances. Lady Grace is a trump she's 
always patching up the shindies." 

I grew confused, and made an honest effort to break 
through the webs that were set a-spinning round me. 

"I ought to tell you, Lord Parravale," I began, "that 
as a matter of fact I am utterly ignorant of who " 

"O Lord, don't drag me into it !" he burst out. "The 
fact is, Gordon, I'm supposed to be more or less tied up 
with Joan, the daughter, you know, and though it's 
nothing formal, in fact well, there's nothing, really I 
haven't seen the girl for five years but the mater and 
Lady Grace are keen on it, don't you know, and I don't 
say it won't be. So there's no good my taking sides. I 
don't doubt you're in the right Colonel Protheroe told 
my father you were as fine a fellow as ever stepped he 
knows all about it, of course." 

"There's one person that does know all about it," I 

159 



THE INHERITANCE 

said thickly, "and that's Mr. Geddie I'll know what he 
has to say before I'm much older !" 

"Oh, Geddie!" says Pat, relieved; "if old Geddie's 
managing, you're all right, no fear. He does all our 
business don't bother, now, but be guided by Geddie, 
Gordon. Just leave it to him. Why, the pater says Ged- 
die's patched up more families than any man in London. 
And I'll have a go at Lady Grace, if you like Gad, you'll 
be late you've hardly time to change, and I'll never get 
to Staceways for dinner." 

I rose in haste, and signalled a cab as unconsciously as 
if I had summoned those useful vehicles for a decade. 

"And to think we never knew that one of 'em went 
to the Bermudas!" mused Pat; "I'll wager Joan and 
Taffy haven't an inkling! There was that bad egg of a 
Sir Hugo, though, they never mention maybe it was he. 
. . . Gad, I believe it must have been he! He was the 
Baronet when I was a kiddie Oh, my dear fellow, my 
dear Gordon, I beg your pardon ! I didn't realize, on my 
honour . . . please forget it!" 

Sir Hugo ! Sir Hugo ! Something seems to take 
shape, tantalisingly, in my clouded brain, then fade again. 
What was that I seemed to grasp ? 

"Never mind, never mind," I mutter vaguely. 

"And Goggy's called for him, you know, anyway at 
least, I suppose so," Pat extenuates, "though of course 
it's more than likely it's just a family name like yours, 
you know. But you won't mind my remembering that 
Sir Wilkie was awfully bitter ; I happen to know, because 
I was asking Goggy, once, years ago, if he was named 
for Victor Hugo, and he told me there was a row on with 
his uncle. His father was probably awfully prejudiced." 

"We'll see about all this later, Parravale," I said briefly ; 
"it's it's what I've come over for." 

160 



I SEE LIFE 

And suddenly I saw that what I had said was true ! 

So, even as I laughed back at the little sapphire devils 
in Lady Kitty's eyes and wondered why it was that I had 
been possessed of the silly idea that women with grown 
daughters couldn't, a priori, be fascinating, even then, I 
say, my brain, incredibly dormant, it seemed, till now, 
galvanised and threw off brilliant, vivid sparks, and 
whizzed as it whirled about in my head. 

Sir Hugo ! Sir Hugo ! "Fair like me, with the same 
chin." And I had been buried sixteen years in Warwick ! 

"Stupid that Patty couldn't come," Lady Kitty was 
saying, "isn't it? Grace Stacey is rather a cat, some- 
times. She seems to think I should bite Pat !" 

"But you wouldn't, I'm sure." 

"Oh, no ; I'd not bite him !" 

"You'll make me jealous of Pat, Lady Kitty!" 

"O-o-oh! And one hears of 'shy Colonials'! Never 
mind, you're a dear boy yourself, Mr. Gordon, a very 
dear sort of boy. I shouldn't dare to tell you what an at- 
tractive boy you were but no doubt you've been told so 
too often for your own good." 

"No on my honour, I haven't! Tell me!" 

"As if I would! (No, indeed, no more for me. Well, 
only a pint, then!) But, seriously, I don't mind telling 
you one thing. You're rather like another dear boy that 
that used to be fond of me ..." 

"When?" 

"Oh, ages ago six months, then. Your chin that 
little, square cleft exactly like his." 

"You mean Goggy?" I ask quickly. 

"Why, yes how did you know? Do you know 
Goggy ? Why, to be sure, you're a Gordon, too !" 

"Yes, I'm a Gordon, too," I repeat bitterly. 

"And your eyes! That same green that's really blue 
161 



THE INHERITANCE 

glauque, you know, and the lashes so dark ... I knew 
there was something! But coming from America, I 
never thought ! Why didn't Patty say something about it 
I thought he'd just met you to-day." 

"He had." 

"Oh ! . . . But but I thought they were all girls, the 
rest of the Gordons? How interesting! And Sir Wil- 
kie's father the old Baronet surely he was the only 
son. Why, yes, because, when poor old Hugo went to 
the bad, everybody said it was old Sir Doric's fault for 
breaking the Gordon rule and having more than one son 
don't you know ?" 

"No, I don't know. I'm a stranger here, Lady Kitty." 

"Like your motto 'A Sir anger, but still a Gordon.' 
And that's what you are, aren't you, Mr. Gordon? I 
suppose you've come over here to 'trace it up,' as the 
Yankees say? I met a man at your Ambassador's once, 
who told me that he owned the city of Leeds, really ; his 
name was Ingraham. But he called it In-gra-ham like 
that." 

"Yes. I've come to trace it up." 

"How serious we are! Only don't disinherit poor 
Goggy, will you where did you meet him? He never 
was in Bermuda you're from Bermuda, I think? Only 
poor Hugo was there when he was Sir Hugo. What's 
your name, Mr. Gordon?" 

"Hugh." 

"Hugh? Why, how strange! How very . . . Why, 
who are you, Mr. Hugh Gordon ?" 

There is but one answer to this blunt question, but I 
do not make it. 

"I will tell you some other time, later, Lady Grif- 
fiths." 

"(Vale-Griffiths, my child.) But ... but ... I 
162 



I SEE LIFE 

don't want to seem impertinent, dear Mr. Gordon, only 
your eyes and your chin, you know. It's not possible that 
. . . Oh, it can't be I" 

The wine, the lights, the low clink and rustle and mur- 
mur of a well-fed English roomful, the glistening shoul- 
ders, the arch eyes of jewelled women turned so often 
and so unmistakably on our table (for Lady Kitty and I 
were quite alone), the men who rose, serviette in hand, 
stood so stiffly and bowed so ceremoniously when they 
caught a glance of my vis-a-vis, the delicate, wonderful 
food is it any wonder that between the boy of yesterday 
and to-day a great gulf suddenly stretched? 

I leaned toward her and tapped the shining damask 
slowly. 

"More things are possible than you or your friends 
suspect," I said, under my breath. 

The little devils gleamed no longer in her eyes. Only 
a keen, serious interest was in them, as they met my own 
squarely. 

"Do you mean do I understand you to say, that Hugo 
had another son in Bermuda? That he married there?" 

"I say nothing," I muttered thickly, "I only said I'd 
tell you another time. Remember, I say nothing." 

"Because it's quite possible, of course," she went on, 
utterly ignoring my last speech. "And it would be just 
like Hugo. Old Cecil Vale always said there was some- 
thing or other hushed up, about Hugo. He said once I 
remember it perfectly well 'Grace Gordon will have 
hard work quieting that business down, I'll wager !' And 
when I said what business, he only answered, 'Oh, just 
a little more of that precious Hugo's devilry, my dear, 
that's all! Ten to one, he's fooled them at Hopestairs, 
any way.' Tell me, did he fool them ?" 

My head rang. 

163 



THE INHERITANCE 

"I say nothing ! Mind you, I say nothing !" I repeated 
mechanically. 

"You may say nothing, dear Mr. Gordon, but your chin 
says volumes," she answered quickly. "Tell me only this 
who was your mother ?" 

The room was a bright blur. 

"I don't know," I said, and my voice seemed another 
man's voice, "she died when I was a baby." 

"But but your name . . . Gordon . . . ?" 

"Oh, yes," I answered bitterly, "it's my name all right 
enough, Lady Kitty I've seen my mother's wedding 
ring." 

"Ah!" she said thoughtfully, "it's very curious." 

My mind went back like lightning to the incident of the 
wedding ring; I had been rummaging through Nana's 
bureau for toffee, which she made me on rainy days, and 
had brought to the surface a little carved wooden box 
such as one buys at the Swiss resorts, from which, as I 
pried into it, there fell a broad gold rinj, a straight band 
with a black enamel pattern around it in the Greek-key 
style. 

"What's this, Nana?" I asked, "why don't you 
wear it?" 

"It's your mother's wedding ring, lovey," she answered, 
after a long pause, "and Nana's saving it to give to you 
when you're twenty-one." 

At that she burst into a passion of tears, which alarmed 
me terribly, and I begged her to stop. 

"Did you love her so much ?" I queried, when she was 
calm again, "were you so sorry that that she " 

"God help me, but I doubt I loved her too well!" she 
said in a whisper. "But put by the thought of it, Iambic, 
I've done the best I could. And when you're a man 
grown, you must do the rest yourself." 

164 



I SEE LIFE 

"Anyway, I like your ring the best," I said comfort- 
ingly, and she smiled wanly and twisted her own rounded 
gold circlet about her roughened finger. 

"Eh, but it's been of more service to me than ever hers 
was to her !" she said, very low, and put back the enam- 
elled one into the box. 

Under the spell of the memory I found myself telling 
Lady Kitty the incident, and from then on it needed but 
little urging to get from my crowded boy's heart all that 
was in it. Before our coffee was cool for drinking, Lady 
Vale-Griffiths knew all of my life that I did, and guessed 
more, as I very soon saw. 

"Twenty years twenty years ago," she murmured, 
pressing her lovely ringed hands over her eyes. "Why, 
surely, that was when poor old Hugo came back from 
Bermuda. . . . 

"Yes. I was nearly thirteen, and I heard Aunty scold- 
ing about it to Sir Patrick. 

" 'Grace may regret the day she refused Sir Hugo,' 
Aunty said, 'for all she counts on his never marrying 
again. Hugo never kept a promise yet, and you'll see 
he'll be up with a son and heir just as poor Wilkie Gor- 
don expects it least. Hugo's not dead yet,' says she." 

"Then, Sir Hugo was married ?" 

"Goodness, yes; didn't you know? oh, no, you don't 
know anything. Well, he married a sort of person oh, 
well, she was impossible, but she was married, it couldn't 
be denied." 

"A sort of person," I prompted. 

"What was she, now? We all knew all about it, of 
course, and especially me, because Aunty would have 
married me to him in a minute, do you see, if I'd been 
but three years older !" 

"What!" 

165 



THE INHERITANCE 

"Oh, yes, he was ages older than me, but he always 
admired me, poor old Hugo. 

" 'You hurry and grow, and I'm hanged if I don't 
marry you, Kitty-cat,' he used to say, 'marry and settle 
down, eh?' And give the horridest wink ugh, I 
couldn't bear Sir Hugo then. But he wasn't so bad when 
he wasn't tipsy." 

"Whom did you say he married ?" 

"She was oh, yes, she was the daughter of a chemist 
out Euston way, somewhere. Her father brought him 
out of delirium tremens one day and kept him in his 
house, over the shop, and she took care of him. Of 
course, that was enough for Hugo. I remember as well 
as can be when Sir Patrick came stamping into the 
schoolroom where Aunty was watching my drawing les- 
son (the teacher used to make love to me, I'm sorry to 
say) and burst out with the news. 

" 'Well, it's all over,' he said, perfectly furious, 'that 
ass of a Hugo's done it now.' 

" 'Another affaire?' says Aunty 'remember the child, 
Patrick.' 

" 'Pah !' says Uncle, 'it's worse than that, Biddy this 
time he's married her !' 

"And it was true: Lady Emma Gordon she was, and 
poor Grace cried her eyes out, nearly; she was twenty, 
and Joan was just born she wants to marry Pat to 
Joan, you know. Nobody's seen Joan for five years, 
since she went to the Sacre Cceur in Tours. If you 
cut Pat out at the ball it's her coming-out, you 
know, Grace will never forgive you, for her heart 
is set on it." 

"Is Lady Emma " 

"Dead, a long time. More than sixteen years, it must 
be, for they didn't come to my wedding, for their deep 

166 



I SEE LIFE 

mourning. Mon Dieu, I had better have worn mourning 
myself, n'est ce pas?" 

I scowled. Patty had told me a few facts about the 
aristocratic Vale-Griffiths. 

"Between his never being sober, and her such a oh, 
she was simply impossible ! Anyway, people weren't any 
too cordial (he was very trying to have in one's house, 
because he was always after the maid-servants poor, 
dreadful old Hugo and of course the woman hadn't a 
shred of influence over him), so when his lungs went bad 
and they got him off to the Bermudas, it was a great re- 
lief. He'd just got into another mess of some sort I 
didn't know much about it, but with Hugo it was always 
the one thing: women and poor Grace Gordon had to 
literally hold Wilkie away from his brother, they say. 
She settled everything (that was what Lord Cecil said 
Grace would have hard work quieting), but she did it, 
and got him and Lady Emma off there was some 
brother that threatened to kill him, I believe poor Hugo 
always found the brothers troublesome ! 

"Lady Emma Lady Senna, we all called her, d cause 
de papa died in childbirth, and Hugo came back to 
Hopestairs with the body. He looked terribly old and 
broken, and never seemed the same. 

" 'Have it your own way, Grace and Wilkie,' he said, 
Til trouble you no more/ and he kept his word for once. 
Lord Cecil said it took ten years off them when he died." 

"Off whom?" 

"Why, Grace and Wilkie, stupid. So Wilkie got the 
baronetcy. And if poor Hugo's boy and Lady Senna's 
hadn't died before it was born, where would Grace and 
Wilkie have been? Grace said it made one believe in 
religion, after all. That was all about twenty years 
ago." 

12 167 



THE INHERITANCE 

Something seemed closing, weaving all around me; I 
dreaded I knew not what. 

"Twenty years?" I said mechanically, "twenty years? 
Why, I am nearly twenty-one years old ..." 

Lady Kitty smiled mockingly. "Do you begin to see, 
then?" she whispered, leaning till her white breast 
touched her coffee cup, "do you see why it was worth 
their while to pay so well ? Not Grace, I will say for her, 
she'd not dare; for all she's a bit of a cat, she's good 
enough. But Wilkie heavens, there's nothing on earth 
that man wouldn't do ! And with Gideon Geddie to help 
him I tell you Wilkie Gordon has no limits !" 

"You mean that I that my mother that I am 
really " 

"I mean that what your mother couldn't do for you, 
Mr. Hugh Gordon, what your father was too weak to 
stand up for, your old nurse tried to fight for, that's what 
I mean. Till she was starved out of it. What was her 
name ?" 

"Nana ?" I was utterly dazed. "I don't oh, of course. 
It was Esther False." 

"Then that was that maid of Lady Senna's old Salsy- 
palsy, Hugo used to call her. She was a kind of 
relative, in service, and poor Senna had to have some- 
body she could talk to! She used to keep her in her 
room to give it to Hugo, when he drank. Salts-and- 
Senna, everybody called them." 

"Then you think that S " 

"I think, cher enfant," she put out her warm white 
hand and I grasped it feverishly. We were almost alone 
in the room, for everyone had gone on to the play or the 
ball. 

"I think, Monsieur Innocence, that Master Goggy is 
just Master Hugo Gordon, the son of a younger son, 

168 



I SEE LIFE 

(poor old Wilkie!) and that you are . . ." she smiled 
into my eyes, prolonging my torture. 

"Oh, no! Oh, no!" I muttered; but all the while I 
knew that I thought with her, and longed to hear her 
say it. 

"Come and take me to my carriage, Sir Hugh!" she 
whispered, and I rose and gave her my arm, and we 
passed out between the lines of bowing waiters. 



CHAPTER XIII 

In Which I Glimpse My Inheritance 

AT Lady Kitty's advice I took no official steps in 
the direction of Gideon Geddie, both because he 
was found to be on his holiday, which he passed, 
like all good Britons, in sunny France, and because she 
judged it better that I should make friends before I made 
revelations. In France, too, were Sir Wilkie and Lady 
Grace, travelling a little with their daughter, Joan, be- 
fore they brought her home to bring her "out," a phrase 
which I had heretofore connected entirely with fiction. 
(In South Warwick, when our young ladies lengthened 
their skirts and raised their hair, they were, ipso facto, 
"out," and they were never very much "in," anyhow.) 

"Just go about with Patty," counselled Lady Kitty, 
"and then when the row is on, you'll have all his set to 
back you. Patty's none too attached to Sir Wilkie, though 
he's awfully fond of Lady Grace ; if he does marry Joan, 
it will be just to please her." 

"I should like to catch myself marrying for such a rea- 
son," I said hotly. 

"Oh, you'll have your pick, mon cher, or I'm much 
mistaken," she said meaningly. I looked straight into her 
yielding eyes. 

"It is quite unlikely that 7 should marry for some 
time," I said slowly, and I had the satisfaction of seeing 
her eyelids fall. She had captured me absolutely, this 
lovely panther, and at her nod I would have proclaimed 

170 



I GLIMPSE MY INHERITANCE 

my identity from the top of St. Paul's or guarded it for- 
ever in my heart. 

Love's instinct taught me that she liked me best when 
I was most like the lads of my age with whom Patty's 
friendship threw me, and truly, I doubt if any stranger 
could have selected, in a week's time, from that crew of 
invincible young elegants, the simply bred Yankee! 

Dr. Caldwell had given me, as a matter of course, 
drafts on my entire little property, for my well-known 
conservatism in money matters would have made this a 
reasonable course in the eyes of a more suspicious guar- 
dian ; and his simple mental picture of an untravelled boy 
guided by a middle-class merchant's son through the ob- 
vious sight-seeing of the metropolis would have vastly en- 
tertained the placid young impertinences that cantered 
Rotten Row with me! How I blessed Chrissy's fat 
Shetland pony (a famous gift from the Major) on which 
we had all of us practised every deed of daring that the 
mind of boy or tomboy could conceive! An English 
groom, the flotsam of the Warwick livery stable, had 
taken pains to teach Bert, who passed on to us, the Eng- 
lish rise to the trot that was considered so "affected" at 
that time, in the town, and mounted us more than once, 
for bribes of the doctor's tobacco, on the one or two rid- 
ing horses the stable boasted. No one could live with the 
doctor and be long ignorant of the good points of the 
greatest of all animals, and my shrewd criticisms on the 
horseflesh submitted to my lordly judgment by Pat's 
eager friends, my final well-weighed purchase of the 
chestnut cob deemed worthy, put me beyond the need of 
any further sponsorship. 

"Gad, my boy, I wouldn't mind you pickin' me a 
hunter, myself !" the Major vouchsafed, warmly. "You 
should have seen him, Stacey Pat's a babe to him!" 

171 



THE INHERITANCE 

"Oh, come now, Major," says Pat, "that's not quite 
fair look how the gov'nor keeps one down to eighty 
quid! Give me an accommodating banker in the States 
to send on all I cable for, and watch me !" 

They smile, but the smile is a respectful one, the char- 
acteristic English smile that greets the golden means of 
the comfort and leisure they among all nations know best 
how to use and enjoy. The mammas smile, the pink 
maidens smile, the young bloods that remember my sup- 
per after the play smile, and Lady Kitty, shapely and 
swaying on her grey gelding, smiles, too, and glances at 
the new bangle on her wrist. And I heaven help me ! 
I smile, too, and pat the neck of the chestnut cob and 
tap my varnished riding-boots the boots of the Honour- 
able Mr. Avesham. Was there in the garments of that 
unexceptionably clothed honourable some insidious virus, 
some inoculation of extravagance that penetrated the 
system, swiftly and surely, and wrapped the wearer of 
them in a blinding, golden haze that veiled all the sharp 
angles of actuality with the vagueness of a Fairy Prince 
future ? It seems to me now that there must have been. 
Certainly I had not worn those breeches an hour before 
a borrowed nag appeared impossible to me, and the pur- 
chase of Emperor, the chestnut, seemed the merest 
necessity. 

And now I come to an embarrassing point in these 
memories, a point which a certain foolish candour will 
not let me disallow, though it may stand seriously in my 
way with the publisher of these idle memoirs, if ever they 
attain such a chimerical importance. For in case they 
should in these circumstances ever fall into the hands of 
male youth of the age of the subject of my poor ram- 
blings, I realize perfectly that it should be the object of 
the instructor of such youth to draw a weighty moral as 

172 



I GLIMPSE MY INHERITANCE 

to the effect of the undoubted dissipation of time, money 
and energy on my part during the six weeks that I spent 
in and about London, and that said effects should be pic- 
tured as taking the form of weakness, pallor, ill looks, 
et cetera the undying accompaniments in the Edgeworth 
school, of late nights, empty bottles, dawdling mornings 
and lack of useful employment. But I am writing of 
things as they were, not as they might have or should 
have been, and I find it necessary to record that those 
six weeks were six weeks of the greatest physical bien 
etre, in one sense, of my life ! 

The regular, hard exercise, the full, meat diet, the 
generous wines, the open-air existence, the shock of the 
cold, bracing baths which I learned to take at that time, 
above all, the delicious, prodigal feeling of superiority, 
ease and irresponsibility, brought about in me a glow, a 
solidity, an elasticity that I had never before experienced. 
To ride hard all the morning, then stand tingling from 
the buckets that young Viscount Pellegrew's man threw 
over us in the little marble salle de bain he had had built 
into his suite of bachelor rooms in Berkeley Square, to be 
officiously helped into fresh, lavender-scented linen by the 
absurd little frog in buttons I had taken over for my Lon- 
don sojourn from Ulick Vale, Lady Kitty's cousin, who 
had trained him into a fair valet and who pointed out 
that since I had to have a groom, this creature, Greggs by 
name, had been raised from that estate originally and 
might as well give me the advantage of these two ac- 
complishments when I had emerged from his hands, I 
say, scented and buttonholed (I always wore a white rose 
since I had first met Lady Kitty wearing one, and she 
had commented favourably on it), my moustache (shades 
of Warwick!) waxed, and my hair over the left temple 
not entirely innocent of one deft twist of the tongs ; when 

173 



THE INHERITANCE 

I had devoured a delicate, clear soup, a bit of sole, a gen- 
erous slice of red, juicy beef, a bowl of escarole mixed 
into a salad by Pelligrew's incomparable man, all washed 
down with as much of a quart of Burgundy as left little 
enough for Greggs ; when, lolling at Ulick's rooms over 
his own Turkish coffee and the special cigarettes that 
just fitted my famous silver case (it had got, somehow, 
by now, a "G" in turquoises on one side, and the cigar- 
ettes proved to have a tremendous success since I had 
persuaded the tobacconist at a price to keep all of that 
size for my personal consumption), when, rolling a thim- 
bleful of apricot brandy under my tongue, I lolled about, 
I say, joking Ulick over his little dancer, in full fed, con- 
tented torpor, that terrible candour I have invoked com- 
pels me to say that I was never healthier in my life ! 

What I had learned to regard as "dissipation" at Yale 
was entirely a matter of closed rooms, and wine suppers 
that only irritated over-taut nerves, unrelieved by strenu- 
ous exercise and good feeding for our college fare was 
of the kind popularly supposed in New England to be 
conducive to high thinking. Moreover, I never had an 
idea of good wine till I came to London, for the stuff 
doled out to our unsuspecting youth, at terrible prices, 
was not even a remote cousin to the generous clarets and 
Burgundies that I soon learned to appreciate. I was 
fair enough at rowing and baseball, but not heavy enough 
for football as it is now played, nor quick enough for the 
game at that date, and not up to a Varsity standard in 
any of the three. So, like a normal American youth, as 
I could not take a part in the picked crews, I eschewed 
violent exercise altogether and sat, a contented and up- 
roarious spectator, at the various contests. 

But now, what with riding in the morning, boxing, 
fencing or rowing in the afternoon, and dancing all night 

174 



I GLIMPSE MY INHERITANCE 

long for Parliament sat very late that summer and all 
London lingered with it eating and drinking five times 
in the twenty-four hours and sleeping when I needed to, 
I literally spread out and up, and Mr. Goodenow let out 
chest and shoulders of the Honorable Avesham's trous- 
seau. 

Let me take up the tale of my worthless but how 
amusing! day, and see if I can fill you with the scan- 
dalised Warwickian sense of its luxurious uselessness. 

When the effects of our luncheon had worn off we 
caused cabs to be summoned except Pelligrew, who 
kept his own, and Lord Landry's second son, who used 
his father's and drove majestically, ogling the crowd as 
we passed, to a mysterious, bare room near the Brixton 
Road, where Young Tom, a gigantic black, obliged all 
and sundry young blades with as much punishment in 
gloves as they cared to pay for. I was fairly good at that, 
and particularly good at wrestling, which was a hobby 
of Dr. Crane's, he having been exceptionally well trained 
in it by a Magyar servant of his father's in Geneva. He 
had taught us more than one clever dodge at his favourite 
sport, and these, forgotten for nearly three years, came 
back to me gradually and won more excited admiration, 
now, than I had ever dreamed of when I learned them, 
more to please the old doctor than for any other reason. 

One particular "throw" Young Tom condescended to 
beg to learn, offering me in exchange free bouts with 
the gloves, and one day as I lay panting on a leather 
couch, after a hard demonstration of my skill ( for Young 
Tom was very earnest in his pursuit of knowledge), I 
heard a husky whisper from the window ledge: 

"hi sye, mates, look alive there an' you'll see the toff 
as give Young Tom wot for 'e's lyin' down, wropped 
up in a blanket !" 

175 



THE INHERITANCE 

We all stared I among the rest to see the "toff," and 
met the adoring gaze of a window ledge of gutter boys, 
hanging perilously from the gutters they were related 
to, peering into our sanctum. As I looked, Landry (he 
was called "Laundry" or "the Wash") gave a guffaw. 

"You silly ass, it's you he means!" cried the Wash, 
and sure enough, I, little Hughie Gordon, was the toff ! 

How good the scrub-down with Young Tom's assist- 
ant's hair mittens, and the glow that filled every vein and 
artery as we drove back, dazzling Piccadilly, to ride at 
anchor at Pellegrew's cousins' in Grosvenor Square, 
where one got the best teacake in London, and ate plates 
of it, also buttered scones and jam roll and four cups of 
tea with yellow cream and so much sugar that the young- 
est cousin was ashamed to send the footman out again 
for more! 

Then, with promised dances scribbled on our cuffs, off 
to the stable where I kept my bull pup, a snowy, massive 
creature with a pedigree beside which the Vere de Veres 
were of mushroom growth. This bull pup had become a 
sort of fetish among us, and the story of his acquisition 
is so characteristic of the curious light in which Fate saw 
fit to exhibit me to my new friends, that I must not 
slight it. 

Comments on my riding, so much better than that of 
most Colonials, brought the old Warwick livery-stable 
groom before mentioned so clearly to my mind that I 
exhumed, along with poor, drunken Skidder's sandy, 
bleary visage, a chance recommendation to "mind I went 
to Humpleby's in the old Kent Road, number 39, down 
the alley, if ever I wanted a good pit bull." This appar- 
ently irrelevant remark, so little likely to apply, at the 
time, to any further circumstances of mine, seemed to 
have been bitten into my memory with acid, and on my 

176 



I GLIMPSE MY INHERITANCE 

carelessly admiring a little terrier bitch of Ulick's, and 
his recommending the famous Midland Kennels that bred 
her, I found myself saying quietly that my own choice 
was a good pit bull, and that I had an idea of hunting up 
a great connoisseur in that line in the old Kent Road 
recommended strongly by an old groom. 

An old groom, mark you, not my old groom. I spoke, 
as I thought, vaguely, but was supposed by my circle and 
by Humpleby (who turned up, as everything English 
does turn up, in the same place) to have implied that 
Skidder was one of my home retinue. Humpleby, in 
fact, would hear of nothing else, and being prevented 
from addressing me as "your lordship," compromised on 
"your honour," and was sympathetically eager to hear of 
old Bill Skidder's good berth in the States with such a 
fine young master, begging my honour's pardon, but a 
better stablehand than Bill never was and never will be 
found, when not in liquor, be who he may! And for a 
good drench, there never was his equal, drunk or sober. 
He could bring a sick animal around in better time, could 
Bill 

"Don't want to interfere, Gordon, old chap, but should 
say you were rather an ass to let him go man like that's 
good as a vet," murmurs the Wash through his Havana, 
and I hasten to explain. 

"But, my dear Laundry, I didn't mean that it was 
my " 

"Oh, not your honour's fault, I'll lay," says Humpleby 
warmly ; " 'e'd always lose his berth, would old Bill, ac- 
count o' the drink. 'Ow else would he a left Lord Utter, 
and 'er Ladyship weeping tears at losing of 'im, along 
of 'er little bay mare that 'e syved from the knacker 
with that drench o' his ? But it 'ad to be." 

"Oh, you'll take him on again, when you go home," 
177 



THE INHERITANCE 

says Pat easily. "Chap always does, you know. Can't 
manage, unless. Always so." 

It appears that I must add Skidder to my establish- 
ment, already elastic enough to include a racing stable, a 
cellar unrivalled for West Indian liqueurs, and a Magyar 
body servant, and I do so fatalistically, whereat Hum- 
pleby touches a greasy, grateful cap, and we go to in- 
spect the dogs. 

They come tumbling and snarling and grinning out 
into the tiny, paved court which appears to be their recre- 
ation ground, and I gaze at them rather blankly, for I 
don't like them as much as I'd hoped I should. One 
among them, a broad-beamed, heavy-jowled, incredibly 
wrinkled object of an obviously different strain from the 
others, takes my eye and I point my malacca stick lan- 
guidly at him. 

"What's his figure?" I ask. 

"There, now, look at 'im !" Humpleby cries admiringly, 
"can you fool 'im, I arsk yer ? Not to any hextent, gen- 
tlemen, not much ! Wot's 'is figger, says 'e ? That, your 
honour, is nigh onto bein' the champion of England, that 
is, and so nigh that you might call 'im so and not call 'im 
much out of 'is nyme ! That's a five 'undred guinea dorg, 
gentlemen, and got with an eye to the fancy, more than 
private tryde. 'Ector's Glory 'is nyme is, son o' Glory's 
East Anglia. I got 'im to try a bit o' breedin' o' my own, 
to cross with one o' me own strain, but if your honour 
says the word ..." 

I gasp, but hold my own. 

"A fine dog, Humpleby, but a little high for me. I 
merely mentioned him." 

"I see, sir. And if you've an equal eye for the 'orses, 
sir, I pity Bill that 'e 'ad to leave your honour's stybles, I 
do ! Well, now, about 'ow 'igh was your honour thinkin' 

178 



I GLIMPSE MY INHERITANCE 

to go? 'Undred an' a 'alf ? TJndred an' a quarter? I 
'ave one at a 'undred (guineas) that I've got on com- 
mission from a friend, like, who must sell for ready 
money Alf, get out that big fellow that come in Tues- 
day was a week." 

Alf got out the big fellow and he was more than ade- 
quate to his description: we looked at each other and 
were destined. 

And I, after one long, careful survey, paid for that 
fifty pounds odd of caninity the price of one year's lodg- 
ing, food and instruction at Yale College, U. S. A., and 
paid it on the nail, without a murmur ! 

"Pounds, sir, we'll say pounds, your honour I could 
do no less for Bill's old master and such a gentleman, sir 
it's a pleasure to serve you ! If not as in hevery way 
claimed, return 'im tomorrer and receive the full sum, 
your honour ! And if it's not a liberty, my regards to Bill 
Skidder and 'earty thanks for 'is recommend. And 
pleased to serve any o' your honour's friends a line from 
your honour will get my personal attention. The pup's 
not named, sir. Thank you." 

"What should you call him, Gordon ?" 

"I baptize him Stranger," I said; "here Stranger, here 
boy!" 

And Pat's eyes met mine with a gleam of comprehen- 
sion. 

"I'll stand godfather, Gordon!" he cried; "here, you, 
here's to drink Stranger's health ! 'A Stranger, but still 
a Gordon,' eh ?" 

" 'A Stranger but still a Gordon !' " they cry all to- 
gether, and moved by some mad, boyish instinct, I take 
off my hat swiftly, and stoop to pat my dog, with misted 
eyes. Ah, well, how one felt, how one felt, I say, those 
years ! 

179 



THE INHERITANCE 

I was too little versed in ladies' hearts to realize how it 
was that the secret I had supposed shared between Gideon 
Geddie, Lady Kitty and me should have filtered out, little 
by little, and seemed to be known, in a vague, undetailed 
way, to all my world of London. I myself had been 
rigid; it never occurred to me that Lady Kitty, my 
adored monitress, could have broken her own rule, and 
I was not unnaturally forced (consider my age!) to the 
conclusion that either Geddie himself, aware that I had 
more friends at court than any one could have foreseen, 
had been beforehand with me, to save his face, or that 
old, half-forgotten stories, covered at the time, were res- 
urrecting themselves from neglected London memories. 

And this last was not entirely a false idea. On the 
great night of the Stacey ball, when for the first time I 
met Pat's mother, more surprises were in store for me 
than would have sufficed to turn an older and warier head 
than mine. The great, lighted mansion, the red velvet 
across the pavement, the gaping London throngs, the 
fragrant, crowded hall, the sprightly violins, the lines of 
powdered footmen all these were no more to me than to 
Ulick, who entered with me, or to Patty, who welcomed 
me, I verily believe. To tell the truth, I hardly noticed 
them, for my brain was boiling, and the violins sang no 
waltzes and polkas to my dizzy ears, but screamed a very 
triumphal entry. For in the entering crush, a mellow 
voice behind me had penetrated to me and the voice had 
said: 

"Why, there's old Wilkie's boy with Ulick Vale I 
had thought him in India. How that lad has improved, 
and how much he looks like Hugo! Poor Hugo how 
handsome he used to be, when all's said and done! I 
never thought his nevvy'd equal him, but I believe he 
will." 

180 



I GLIMPSE MY INHERITANCE 

"S-sh, Bishop, that's not Goggy that's the mysterious 
lost heir from Bermuda ! The one that Kitty Vale-Grif- 
fiths " 

"Ahem, my dear, perhaps it would be just as well not 
to go into that. But, God bless me, you don't mean to tell 
me that's not a Gordon? With that chin?" 

"But he is a Gordon. A Mister Gordon, and the image 
of Hugo. And as rich as Croesus. You know Hugo 
lived in Bermuda " 

The voice dies down. 

"Steady on, Gordon ! Easy does it," Ulick murmurs at 
my elbow, and I see that he is leading me away from 
the voice. 

"Then you you know ?" I stammer, for I see he is as 
red as I. 

"No more than you want me to, old fellow," he says 
soothingly. "It's it's a damned shame, anyhow," he 
adds vaguely. "He's an old fox, Geddie. My uncle 
that's Lord Cecil, you know told me Gideon would sell 
his soul any day for Lady Grace's shoe-buckle. Uncle 
Cis hunted out an old letter last night for Cousin Kit I 
think she'll bring it you. She said she pitied Goggy when 
he saw that letter Lord, but they had it hot and heavy, 
Goggy and Kitty ! She never forgave him for going to 
India. There she is, now." 

But before I can get to her Pat seizes me and leads 
me chafing to Lady Stacey. 

"Here, mater, here he is at last," says Pat. "Let me 
present Mr. Gordon Mr. Gordon, my mother, Lady 
Stacey." 

Surely the handsome matron in the emerald collar turns 
pale as I bow? Surely she glances strangely at Pat and 
away again? Surely after I have passed before her 
murmuring something or other that neither of us hears, 

181 



THE INHERITANCE 

I hear her say quickly, "Where is your father, Parravale ? 
I must speak to your father." 

And when I meet the Filly, whose other name is Taffy, 
whose other name is the Honourable Phyllis Stacey, she 
gapes, actually, into my face. 

"Why, if it isn't Goggy's twin !" she cries. "Did you 
ever in all your life, Pat? And the image of Jumping 
Joan !" 

"Shut up, Taffy, you're howling too loud," says Pat 
rudely, "and he's better looking than Goggy. However," 
as I push past them, "he's after the same lady, fast 
enough !" 

The Honourable Phyllis blushes a deep rose and turns 
her haughty chestnut head away from me, but I care 
little for that, nor for the fact that Pat maliciously 
brought on that hauteur (because he does not love Goggy, 
disapproves of his mother's scheme for marrying Taffy 
to him, and is jealous of his connection or would-be 
connection with Lady Kitty). 

My own position with this queen of youthful hearts 
has become so obvious that the crowd of younger brothers 
and subalterns melts decorously away as I approach, and 
we swing into a polka without a word of greeting a 
dangerous sign, young people, if you don't know ! 

"You have a letter for me?" I ask after we have cir- 
cled the room two or three times in silence. 

But this is too abrupt. You, of course, wouldn't be 
guilty of such a sottise, young man who reads this I 
know you! And she was looking her loveliest in pale 
sky-blue with forget-me-nots in her hair and my bangle 
on her wrist. 

"Letter? letter?" she pouts, "one would think I was 
a post office ! You are not too gallant, milord." 

182 



I GLIMPSE MY INHERITANCE 

Even the jest of that title quivers through me. She is 
so close to me and so soft and fragrant, her eyes are so 
schooled to convey just what nuance of emotion she 
chooses, the violins are so shrill and sweet ! 

"Don't play with me Kitty!" I whisper, "don't, for 
God's sake! Can't you see that I must know who it is 
that loves you so much, before I tell you ? That I haven't 
any right, until?" 

Oh, world of London, that teaches even a son of New 
England so quickly what he may say and do to lovely 
Lady Kitties! Oh, Master Hughie, what would they 
say in Warwick if they knew that Lady Kitty was not 
even the unscrupulous widow they would deplore, but 
owned a noble and very much alive lord in the bonds of 
holy matrimony ? And, oh, mammas of all the pink-and- 
whiteness of England, do you really believe that the 
aforesaid pink-and-whiteness is quite so ignorant of the 
Lady Kitties as you tell us? Really? Je m'en doute, to 
employ the useful tongue so undoubtedly invented for the 
discussion of these delicate subjects ! 

After that outburst of mine, my divinity was silent, 
and she was of those whose silence is far more subtle 
than their speech. Only, as we finished our polka, and 
I gave her up to a young giant of a cavalry man, she 
pointed to a waltz with my initials scratched against it, 
and whispered, "In the library." I nodded and sought 
out the Honourable Taffy, whose curiosity caused her to 
pencil out the twin brother of an Earldom (he was sev- 
enteen minutes younger than the heir!) and dance two 
of his waltzes with me. 

"Mamma's in a frightful wax about you," she confided ; 
"she is going to write to Lady Grace first mail. Did you 
know?" 

13 183 



THE INHERITANCE 

"No. Is she? Why?" 

"I don't know." She looks up obliquely, "but I sup- 
posed you did. Pat does." 

"Does he?" 

"Yes. He said, 'All right, mater, but I suppose you 
know you're pretty certain to upset the apple-cart. From 
what I hear, I'd hate to be the one to tell them.' Mamma 
was furious. Do you know Goggy Sir Wilkie's son ?" 

"By name only." 

"It's all very odd," she says, curiously, "but I expect 
we'll all know, sooner or later. Did mamma ask you to 
Staceways ?" 

"No." 

"She was going to. But I think she'll wait, now, till 
she hears from Lady Grace. I hope you'll come and 
bring your dog. We've heard so much about him. Your 
stables must be beautiful I adore horses, you know. 
Violet Utter said you had their old groom, Skidder 
he taught me to ride : put me on my first pony when we 
were visiting Vi at Utterfields. He had six boys under 
him there, but I suppose you have lots more." 

I smile enigmatically (Oh, Master Hughie!) and guide 
her skillfully to the glowering twin who entered this vale 
of tears seventeen minutes too late. 

"Don't be too severe, Mountstuart," I say, audaciously, 
"you know I'm a stranger in London." 

"A stranger but still a Gordon !" somebody chuckles, 
whirling by me, and though I start and turn, it is too late 
to trace the voice. The very mystery of it intoxicates me : 
it seems that I am a prince at a masked ball, and that 
all the dancers know it and we shall soon unmask. . . . 
Oh, that any drink could be brewed in human vats to 
match that nectar of the gods mixed of hope and youth ! 

I waited in the library and fumed impatiently among 

184 



I GLIMPSE MY INHERITANCE 

the ivories and folios, but she did not keep me long. And 
with her perfect knowledge of the young male heart and 
how far to press it, she drew from her blue bodice a 
folded letter, even as she crossed the threshold, and 
handed it, still a-warm, to my eager grasp. 

"It is from Aunt Biddy to Uncle Cecil," she explained 
quickly; "just the pages that tell about about you. He 
remembered directly, and he says it looks bad for Grace. 
It seems there was a great deal of talk, at the time." 

I dash at the spidery, Italian pages, written close in 
violet ink on thin, crackly paper. 

"About poor Lady Senna, it's all as ridiculous 
and tiresome as everything else the woman did 
or didn't do she seems bound to make trou- 
ble for dear Grace, even in her grave! It ap- 
pears that she did not die in childbirth, as Hays 
writes, but a week later, because her people 
have just got a letter that she wrote saying, 
'I can't bear to look at the poor, dear little 
baby, though I feel I must, for he has no friend 
but me. His father has been drinking all this 
week and has not come near us. It seems ter- 
rible that the boy is to have no rights at Hope- 
stairs I cant but feel he would be better dead. 
My troubles, thank God, are nearly over / 
shall never see England again, I know. Esther 
False has been so good so kind, but she cries 
and cries, and I know that my strength cannot 
last long. How I wish I had never left you all 
and the shop but no one can blame the WUkie 
Gordons, they have borne too much from Hugo. 
But I did love him once. And that poor little 
boy but a week old and Esther with all to man- 
age God be merciful to her!' 

"I copied this from the letter itself, because, 

185 



THE INHERITANCE 

as the Palses say, it was very odd that a baby 
a week old shouldn't have been in the coffin 
with poor Senna's body. And Hugo saying 
all along that the child was born too prema- 
turely for burial dreadful ! I suppose the long 
and short of it is that he realized when he was 
brought face to face with his disgraceful mes- 
alliance just how disgraceful it was, and hated 
the child. 

"Old Slade, that was my maid before I was 
married, you know, is a great friend of the 
False woman that was a poor connection of the 
family and went out with Lady Senna the one 
they called Salts and she was with them 
when the letter finally came it had got de- 
layed, and they were furious and wanted to go 
straight to Mr. Geddie and have the child's 
body looked up and buried with the mother, 
but she, Esther False, said not to think of it; 
that Hugo was wicked enough without making 
him tell any more blasphemous lies, and that 
poor Lady Gordon wouldn't have thanked them 
for making any more disturbance. Slade said 
she was dreadfully upset by the letter, and 
wondered how it could have been mailed, and 
got them to promise to burn it. At last they 
did, but Slade copied out this page of it, pri- 
vately of course, and brought it to me, the week 
before she died, poor old thing. She said it 
looked so odd. What do you think, yourself?" 

Here the page ended abruptly. 

"Uncle Cis says it all comes back to him now," Lady 
Kitty added, as I lifted my eyes from the pages, "and 
he and Aunt Biddy gossipped a lot over it, he says. There 
was some horrid scandal about a servant maid, you see, 
that really sent them off to Bermuda, and Wilkie got the 

1 86 



I GLIMPSE MY INHERITANCE 

whip-hand then, and I suppose . . . this . . . was the 
price." 

"This?" 

"Well you, then !" 

"Are you sure enough Kitty?" 

"Sure, Hugh? I have been sure ever since I saw 
you !" 

The music comes but faintly to this great library, is 
almost subdued, in fact, by the fountain in the conserva- 
tory, but a charitable observer, passing us, must have 
concluded that we, too, were waltzing. . . . 

As she draws away from me, I catch her hand, and 
even she, blonde veteran at this most ancient of games, 
cannot unclasp her soft, pulsing fingers from mine, once 
they have touched. 

"What is that waltz?" I whisper, and she whispers 
back: 

"It is the Blue Danube don't you remember?" 

"I shall never forget it. ... " 

Oh, wicked, wonderful, human Danube! How many 
hearts, how many reputations, how many pasts and fu- 
tures have your languorous blue waves engulfed ! They 
have risen, those charmed musical waters, up to the 
hearts, the lips, of how many generations of waltzers, till 
the poor, happy fools felt too late that you were over 
their heads, and they were floating out, drugged with 
your insidious, swaying melody, to the open sea and the 
night- fog ! 

"Und das hat wit ihrem Singen 
Die Lorelei gethan!" 



CHAPTER XIV 
In Which I Taste of Stolen Waters 

IT was three in the dim London morning when I car- 
ried Lady Kitty home from the ball, doubly 
drunken, with the Stacey champagne, of which I 
had taken far more than was good for me, and the first 
passion of my young manhood, against which there are 
no signable pledges, even in South Warwick! And yet, 
when in the quiet of my rooms (I had taken the suite a 
story above Lord Pellegrew, on Patty's advice, who said 
significantly that there was no telling for how long I 
might want them, and a quarter in advance was nothkig 
to me, he supposed), when, I say, in the still, smoky 
dawn of those pleasant, luxurious new quarters of mine 
I turned out the contents of my pockets on the mantel, 
where Lady Kitty's photograph stood daringly in its 
silver, turquoise-studded frame and Ulick's little dancer 
flaunted her abbreviated petticoats opposite tangled 
with the spray of satin forget-me-nots that had pressed 
my deity's white bosom was a little pink silk rosebud: 
there had been one of these on each of the Honourable 
Phyllis Stacey's satin slippers when first we waltzed to- 
gether, at eleven! At one I had been in the library; at 
one-thirty I had bribed the musicians and waltzed through 
a second Blue Danube the maddest, richest waltzing I 
should ever keep time to and at two-fifteen, exactly, in 
the conservatory, I had cut from Taffy's slipper, with 
a tiny, thin gold pocket-knife, that naughty little pink 
rosebud, and Taffy had blushed above me! 

188 



I TASTE OF STOLEN WATERS 

And Lady Kitty, floating into the conservatory with 
Pat, had noted the blush, and scribbled on her dance- 
card : "It should have been Hugo, not Hugh, mon cher: 
bon chien chasse de race!" 

And Pat had growled, but not too seriously, "I say, 
Gordon, but you are going it, rather! Cutting Goggy 
out every way !" 

And I had laughed, a little loudly, I'm afraid, and 
urged Taffy to promise she'd be riding in the afternoon 
and I would have Gregg bring the famous Stranger for 
her to see. 

"Has he really rough turquoises on his collar?" she had 
asked, and I had answered : 

"Yes it was a present to him from an old friend." 
And she had stammered, "So so I heard. Vi says that 
all the young men 1-like o-older women ... at first !" 

Oh, pink-and-whiteness of the London fogs ! And, oh, 
that strange curiosity a lad's first passion ! 

On the table, propped against the crystal tantalus and 
steadied with my favourite foil, was a foreign letter, in an 
unfamiliar handwriting. I slit it open unsteadily with a 
tortoise-shell dagger Lord Pellegrew's present to me on 
taking up my lodgings and read, in the wonderful legal 
longhand of England, that Mr. Gideon Geddie, solicitor, 
detained at Etretat by a sprained ankle, presented his 
compliments to Mr. Hugh Gordon and advised him, as 
the person probably best informed as to Mr. Gordon's 
affairs, to take one of two courses: either to return 
promptly to the United States of America (the course 
most strongly recommended by Mr. Geddie), or, if this 
should not prove agreeable to Mr. Gordon, to travel as 
rapidly as possible to confer with Mr. Geddie at his lodg- 
ings in Etretat, where Mr. Geddie would most unfor- 
tunately be detained for fully a week's time. 

189 



THE INHERITANCE 

Mr. Geddie could not but regret that Mr. Gordon had 
not seen fit to observe the spirit if not the exact letter 
of the agreement undoubtedly explained to him by his 
guardians, who had appeared hitherto most scrupulous 
and well advised during a period so nearly completing 
the terms of the agreement, but inferred that Mr. Gor- 
don stood ready to accept the consequences to which he 
must perceive his unguarded allusions and unwise choice 
of friends (one in particular) had laid him open. Mr. 
Geddie could not sufficiently impress Mr. Gordon with 
the futility of his inferences, no matter from what prem- 
ises they might have been drawn, and trusted that this 
warning might prove sufficient; in which case, in view 
of the exemplary attitude of Mr. Gordon and his guar- 
dians during practically the whole period of his minor- 
ity, Mr. Geddie felt that he might go so far as to assure 
Mr. Gordon that no difference would be made in the 
last two quarterly allowances (since no official steps had 
yet been taken), and moreover that he might strain a 
point, in view of the exemplary attitude before men- 
tioned, and add that a fairly considerable sum, sufficient 
for partly (at least) establishing a respectable trade 
or professional career, if undertaken in the United 
States of America, would be placed, as a final transac- 
tion, in Mr. Gordon's hands, on the attainment of his 
majority. 

Trusting that he might hear by return of post either 
of Mr. Gordon's intention to return to the States or to 
visit him at Etretat, he was, Mr. Gordon's obed't serv't, 
Gideon Geddie. P. S. In the event of such a course 
having possibly occurred to Mr. Gordon, Mr. Geddie 
could not refrain from warning him against visiting 
Hopestairs, Shropshire, previous to an interview with 
himself. G. G. 

190 



I TASTE OF STOLEN WATERS 

In the glass over the mirror I caught a glimpse of my 
flushed, snarling face and recoiled from it. Was that hot- 
eyed, hasty fellow that cursed a paper, crumpled in his 
shaking fist, really I ? 

Furiously I jerked at the bell that communicated with 
Greggs' attic; furiously I tore at my tailed coat; furi- 
ously I looked out the trains by a guttering candle. 

"Get me a cold bath and my serge suit and a brandy- 
and-soda, double-quick!" I ordered the sleepy, half- 
dressed fellow, "and tell Mr. Vane I can't box this morn- 
ing I must catch the four-twenty Shropshire special." 

"Four-twenty, sir?" 

"Draw the bath, damn you!" I growled, and he fled, 
buttoning himself amazedly. 

It was barely more than a half hour later that I went 
out, through the quiet halls, into early morning London. 
My head was braced into the factitious clearness that a 
sleepless night, a cold bath, a brandy-and-soda and fresh 
clothes can produce, and I felt very calm and steady, more 
master of myself than was, in fact, quite normal. A 
drowsy, grateful cabby, voyaging for luck through Old 
Bond Street, caught me, and we travelled clop-clap 
through the sleeping thoroughfares, meeting only the 
early milk and some market carts heaped with sea-green 
cabbage and curly kale, gay posies bunched among the 
dewy mounds and a sprawled, somnolent driver a-top. 

The hour that I sped along in the express passed like 
a tenth of itself, while quick, clear images of what had 
been and what must be, now, raced through my decep- 
tively steady head. I passed Great Hope and Little Hope- 
mead and got out at Hopestairs Lower Cross as placidly 
as though I had been coming home from school there 
every long vacation of my life. It was after five in the 
morning, and more than one cart was to be seen on the 

191 



THE INHERITANCE 

road, the cloaked figure of more than one old woman 
passed me by (for in the 8o's one still saw cloaks in 
English villages very frequently), as I struck off on the 
way to Hopestairs, as pointed out to me by a clumsy boy, 
driving a little donkey. The way was plain and every 
half mile or so I passed some cottager or labourer, no 
one of whom but touched a cap or pulled a straggling 
forelock, with a stupid, wondering look at my face. 

When I reached the great lodge and the heavy iron 
gate, a shock-headed fellow ran out at a call from within, 
knuckling his forehead hastily, as he pulled at the big 
hasp. 

"Why, it's Mr. Hugo, for sure!" a woman's voice 
called, "and us thinking him 'way over in Injy! Come 
out, father, and oh, I beg your pardon, sir, I'm sure, 
but I thought . . . why, it's never . . . should I know 
you, sir?" 

"Hardly," I answered cheerfully, "but you seem to 
think you do ! My name is Gordon." 

"And indeed I don't need to be told that, sir. Mr. 
Gordon from ..." 

"From the States. Can I see Hopestairs ?" 

"Indeed, sir, and I'm only sorry the family's away 
we'll do the best we can. Sir Wilkie and Lady Gordon 
are in France with Miss Joan, but they're expected yes- 
terday week. Tommy, run up with the gentleman and 
tell Mrs. Pullfit to show the house herself I'll be up 
directly." 

Tommy pockets a shilling and runs ahead, and I fol- 
low for a mile of shaded path and lofty beech aisle, hedge- 
row and coppice, a wonderful glimpse of deer park and 
a willow-fringed pond with a rustic bridge. 

"This here's the short mile cut," Tommy vouchsafed, 
"big road goes on nigh a mile more. Us'll go woodway." 

192 



I TASTE OF STOLEN WATERS 

And "woodway" we go, rabbits starting from under 
our feet, quail piping in the distance, the morning dew 
glistening on the boughs. Truly, a fair heritage, this old 
Hopestairs and whose? I pull the crumpled sheets from 
my pocket feverishly. "The poor, dear little baby . . . he 
has no friend but me . . . it seems terrible that the boy 
is to have no rights." . . . O Mr. Geddie, is there no fair 
play in England ? "A respectable trade," indeed ! 

Now the big, dark brick house starts out at us, bright- 
ened with whitestone facings, draped with wrist-thick 
ivy vines. 

"They creepers be that full o' nests !" says Tommy. 

Some one has gone faster than we, for Mrs. Pullfit, 
rustling in black silk and a swelling gold chain, is in the 
hall, and from window and door pop eager heads, with- 
drawn when I look. Mrs. Pullfit is excited and curious, 
for she has been twenty-two years at Hopestairs, Mr. 
Gordon, and never so much as heard of any of the fam- 
ily in the States. Pettibone, be so good as to preserve 
Mr. Gordon's card most carefully. Mr. Hugh Gordon? 
Indeed ! How disappointed her ladyship will be ! What 
will Mr. Gordon have, Pettibone? 

But Mr. Gordon will have nothing, thank you, and 
he has but an hour to spare, as he has a luncheon en- 
gagement in town. 

"You're not strange, then, to London, sir?" 

Mr. Gordon mentions Lord Parravale, Viscount Pelle- 
grew, Mr. Ulick Vane, and sundry others of his friends. 

Ah ! A-a-a-h ! Will Lady Gordon know the address, 
when she returns? 

Why, yes, Mr. Gordon is rather of the opinion that 
she will. 

Naturally, of course. Would Mr. Gordon like to see 
the 'ouse, being here ? 

193 



THE INHERITANCE 

Mr. Gordon thinks he would. 

And so, with never a question as to this informally 
early hour for visiting a gentleman's country house, Mrs. 
Pullfit conducted me through the state drawing rooms, 
the family drawing room, the bedroom where George the 
Fourth had slept, the dining room with the Hepplewhite 
suite, the upper, panelled passage where Lady Emilia 
Gordon had been killed by her brother, for cause shown, 
and where she accordingly and subsequently walked in 
white, and finally the gallery. It was not so very exten- 
sive, for the family had not, it appeared, been notably 
one of connoisseurs, but there were a Reynolds, a couple 
of Romneys, some mellow Morlands, and a reputed Rem- 
brandt. And into one of the pictures I looked as one 
looks into a mirror, and beheld myself, encomoassed with 
a gold frame. 

Mrs. Pullfit gasped and swallowed. 

"Th-the late Baronet, Mr. Gordon, Sir Hugo," she 
brought out explosively, "painted when at Oxford. I 
was sewing maid when it was brought home, and well 
remember it. Did you had you ever I think vou said 
you had never met the late Baronet, sir ?" 

No, Mr. Gordon had never had that pleasure. 

Excusing the liberty, but as an old servant of the 
family . . . was Mr. Gordon born in the States? 

Mr. Gordon (clutching at a paper in his pocket) was 
born in Bermuda. 

"God be good to us all !" cried Mrs. Pullfit and went 
white as paper and sank into a carved Elizabethan chair. 
And a half dozen maids appeared mysteriously and 
brought her water and a drop of something and stole 
sly glances at the guest and the portrait of the late Baro- 
net. 

I felt ashamed but defiant, and went out hastily, at- 
194 



I TASTE OF STOLEN WATERS 

tended by Pettibone, apologising contritely for Mrs. Pull- 
fit, who'd not been quite the thing for these three days, 
it seemed, and was overtaxing herself. And then I 
peeped into the stables, glanced at the formal garden 
with the sun dial, passed by the wall fruit, shook myself 
free of the peeping heads and whispering voices that 
sprang up wherever I went, and cut across the fields ab- 
ruptly. 

I followed a worn path with seats beside it at inter- 
vals, unconscious of any definite goal, weak with fast- 
ing and fatigue and more feeling than I had dreamed that 
pictured face could wake in me. I had no sense of son- 
ship in looking at it he was too young, the man there, 
for that. But who could look at us, he and I, and doubt 
for a moment what I was to him ? I walked, staggering 
and muttering to myself, for I don't know how long, and 
the morning deepened as I walked, and the air cleared, 
and the birds sang in the English fields and I can you 
blame me that I looked over those fields and cursed the 
chicanery that had kept me from them? 

In the lee of a thick green hedge, close by a little white- 
washed cottage that smelt of bergamot and sun-drying 
linen, I flung myself down on a haycock and 
fell into an exhausted sleep. In my thick dreams 
I talked and pleaded with Mrs. Pullfit, and it was with 
no real surprise therefore that I heard her voice as I 
woke. 

" 'A turn,' says you ! Why, nurse, I was that faint 
inside of me as never was ! If Hetty there hadn't brought 
me the sal volatile, I don't say I shouldn't have quite 
fainted off, I don't." 

"Well, well," says another voice, the dry, toneless 
voice of an old woman, "to think of it ! And 'twas Mas- 
ter Hugo, was it? And why didn't he come to see 

195 



THE INHERITANCE 

Nurse Holley, then? Did he grudge a few steps to a 
old woman?" 

"No, no, Mrs. Holley ; not Sir Hugo ! He's dead, you 
know, dead these fifteen years and more." 

"Aye, so he is. This was Master Goggy you're mean- 
ing. But they sent him to India, surely? Account of 
that nasty Irish woman / know. I heard her poor 
young ladyship telling of it." 

"No, no, Nurse; Master Goggy's safe enough from 
her. And her ladyship's not to say young any longer, 
you know. No, this was one from Bermuda." 

"Bermuda ? Bermuda ? Where poor Esther False went 
with her ladyship that was? I'm glad she had Emma 
with her there was more of Emma than ever you knew, 
my girl eh, that was a bad business! An' I washed 
him on my lap an' who'd have guessed what he'd be? 
But there was never a handsomer Gordon born than 
Hugo. Is this his son, then ?" 

"Oh, Mrs. Holley, who knows? I got Hetty to order 
me out the ponycart and Wilkins drove me himself 
I had to come. Try to remember, Mrs. Holley there's 
no doubt that her ladyship Lady Emma, you know her 
they called Senna died in childbed? It's up in the 
church, surely?" 

"Eh, my dear, 'twas a bad business a bad business! 
I know this: there was a good much poor Lady Grace 
never knew. Esther Palse's second cousin the 'pothe- 
cary's wife, you know, her ladyship's own mother, she 
was here in my cottage raving over a letter, and Esther 
quieting her. 

" 'Say no more, Cousin Ann, say no more,' says Esther, 
'what's done is done, and my word is passed. He was a 
a devil and deceived right and left, but Emma's name 
is safe/ 

196 



I TASTE OF STOLEN WATERS 

" 'Your Emma's, yes,' cries Mrs. False, 'but is mine 
to be marked a liar ? Where's that baby that was a week 
old when she wrote? Where's the heir of Hope- 
stairs ?" 

"So loud she cried that I couldn't but hear her, and 
I threatened to send for her ladyship, but Esther stopped 
me. 

" 'Nurse Holley,' says she to me, 'mark my words, as 
I hope to die,' says she, 'Ann False knows nothing at all. 
A good friend to all our family the Gordons have been, 
and my word is passed to them, and will be kept. If si- 
lence is sometimes paid for, Mrs. Holley,' says she, 'you 
can depend that them that takes the pay knows well for 
what they take it. The letter is burned and was on a 
subject Ann False will do well to forget, if she did but 
know it,' she says. Eh, poor Mrs. False she was dead 
before the month was out, she and Jemima Slade 
and Abel False the son, with the smallpox, and 
Emma in the Bermudas with God knows what gone, 
all gone ! And they blood kin to a baronet's wife ! Dear, 
dear!" 

"She said there was an heir!" 

"Hush, deary; I'm an old woman, now. And the let- 
ter was burned, so Esther said. Esther False was a 
Christian woman, and never missed the first Sunday in 
the month regular. Who was the young gentleman that 
come ?" 

"Mrs. Holley, if you had but seen him! He was Sir 
Hugo to an eyelash, and high and easy, like all of them. 
And the look he sent at Sir Wilkie's picture, Mrs. Hol- 
ley! And the young boy Tommy said he fair ate the 
trees and the deer park, with looking at them ! Tell me, 
dear, is Esther False living?" 

"It was her or Emma that died away in the islands, 

197 



THE INHERITANCE 

deary. Or else Emma came back . . . aye, it was Emma 
that died. So maybe Esther lived. But I'm old, you 
see " 

"Yes, indeed, Nurse, and I'm a fool to worry you, so 
I am. I've brought you some marrow broth, and you 
have a bit of a lie-down, now, and forget me and my 
bothers. I must settle those cackling girls. . . ." 

I got up softly and stepped by the cottage, keeping the 
hedge between. There was but one place more for me 
to see, and the stone spire of it rose among the trees to 
my left. Yes, here are the graves, here the worn stile, 
here the old lych gate. It is many years now since 
the little parish church has served as an actual tomb, 
for Boards and Councils have seen a great light on such 
pious practices, and what I want is out in the open under 
the pearly, misted English sky. 

Ah, yes ! "Hugo Stair, Sixth Baronet Gordon, in the 
thirty-ninth year of his life, obiit June 27, 1861. Emma 
Alice, his wife, who died in childbirth, May 15, 1860. 
The Lord of Hosts is with us, the God of Jacob is our 
Refuge." 

The 'pothecary's daughter! Poor Lady Senna! Un- 
happy in her life, untruthful in her grave ! 

"Oh, Nana, why did you take the filthy money?" I 
muttered, my face hot against the lichened stone; "why 
did you? I had rather have died far rather! My 
poor, weak, helpless mother you wouldn't have been 
ashamed of me, if he was !" 

But even as I leaned against the cold, dead stone, a 
little thought like a warm, furtive flame flickered up 
through my grief. Ashamed of the son of the Sixth 
Baronet Gordon? An apothecary's daughter? 

Alas, poor Lady Senna! I tried to think of you as 
mother, tried honestly, but Kitty's light laugh echoed in 

198 



I TASTE OF STOLEN WATERS 

my ears "of course she was an impossible person !" and 
God help me, I thought she was ! 

By eleven I was back in London. I had planned a 
letter to Mr. Geddie and was a shade displeased to be 
put off it by Pellegrew and Ulick, who had dispensed 
with the formality of going to bed and had been at cards 
all the morning with a certain Captain Renfrew, who had 
lingered along with them, it appeared, on the chance of 
meeting me. All Ulick's Irish blood was in his cheeks 
under the excitement of his pet weakness, gambling, and 
I, no gamester in particular, felt a sudden dash of scorn 
for the mercurial fellow and an idiotic desire to impress 
the Captain with my greater stability. They had had only 
some coffee and rolls since the ball, and were quite ready 
for the thundering breakfast I suddenly discovered the 
need of; so Pellegrew's incomparable fellow was sent 
out to the pastry cook's and down to his master's private 
cellar. 

I can see that table now : the great "standing pie," the 
curry of Yorkshire ham the Captain compounded with 
turned-back cuffs, the plovers' eggs in aspic (got up by 
the Incomparable from the Prince of Wales' own recipe) 
and the long-necked cobwebbed bottles. The day had 
closed in, suddenly, a yellow, dreary fog rolled through 
the windows, and the chill of September in a little 
foretaste, sent the Incomparable to the grate. We 
had the curtains drawn, the lamps lit, and the bottles 
opened. 

"This is the governor's port," Pellegrew announced; 
"I've no right to it I keep it here for him, for it's all 
he touches but I've prigged it for you, Renfrew, for 
you're the only other man in the three kingdoms who 
could appreciate it. Try it, Gordon? It's a wonderful 
thing, I believe." 

14 199 



THE INHERITANCE 

I had discovered early in my London career that I 
was the fortunate possessor of a strong, sound head. In 
this regard I was the frank envy of my associates and 
not without renown among men of Captain Renfrew's 
age. So I matched the quiet Captain glass for glass, bot- 
tle for bottle, led on by the sardonic amusement that 
peeped from his lazy, half-shut eyes, conscious only that 
no liquid hitherto encountered by me had possessed the 
extraordinary, magnetic and stimulant qualities of this 
chosen drink of Edward Antony Cuthbert, Viscount 
Pellegrew, Baron Staynewayre, C.I.E. 

Now the table is cleared, but for cigars and cards, and 
the port (there's plenty more down at Stayne, Captain 
fire away ! My word, Gordon, but you're a wonder my 
father says no man under forty can manage a pint of 
that stuff!). 

Now the Incomparable disappears entirely. Now a 
messenger is despatched for Ulick's cheque book. Now 
the room seems much lighter than I had supposed, and 
later the lamps go dim, apparently, for I have to bend to 
see my cards. Now Greggs brings me down my bank- 
book and a letter from the inside flap of the green mo- 
rocco portfolio an American letter from Hartford, Con- 
necticut ('ow is that last -word spelled, sir? Good Lord, 
how do I know? Spell it yourself! Very good, sir). 
Now Ulick is very white, and says "No, thanks, Pelle- 
grew," and ceases to play. Now my host, who seems to 
be farther off than I had supposed even his drawing room 
admitted of, shakes his head solemnly (or is it the lamps 
flickering?) and murmurs, "I say, Gordon, old man, you 
are going it, aren't you? Have some soda water? I 
must see the States simply must." 

"It's those damn colonials no income tax only 
son. . . ." growls Ulick. 

200 



I TASTE OF STOLEN WATERS 

"I hear that Mr. Gordon has more property than is 
commonly supposed, even . . . expectations ... re- 
markable situation. . . ." Captain Renfrew ventures 
softly. 

Now I seem to be talking. My hands are shuffling, 
dealing, playing a clear, steady game of cards; but my 
tongue is quite dissociated from them, and talks before 
I am quite ready for it. I am talking about Mrs. Pullfit 
and reading them a letter ... we all shake hands. "By 
God, I believe he's outflanked them, gentlemen!" cries 
the Captain, still softly ; "y u play, I believe, Lord Pelle- 
grew ?" 

Now the viscount shakes his head. . . . "If you want 
to call that bay hunter ninety guineas, Renfrew, but I 
hate to lose him, I swear !" 

. . . What is Pellegrew saying? The steadiest run of ill 
luck he ever knew ? Whose ill luck ? Who loses like an 
Englishman, anyway? Who hopes to give us our re- 
venge, later, but suppose we understand that the Regi- 
ment leaves in three days? Yes, three days so Colonel 
Protheroe said. Who hopes somebody will come out to 
visit the Colonel and get his revenge ? Who calls Greggs 
and says these infernal, twisty stairs will kill somebody 
yet and he shall write to the landlord ? 

Somebody asks what the time is: five o'clock, sir. 
Somebody puts his head on a cool linen pillow and drops 
into a deep, deep nothingness. . . . 

I woke with a start. What ! Still five o'clock ? Was 
it always going to be five o'clock, now ? Oh, of course, 
five o'clock to-morrow, is what Greggs meant! That is, 
to-day, really. And I am sorry to cast a shade of doubt 
upon such exemplary things as tracts and moral phys- 
iology books for schools by stating that I woke without 
a shade of headache, completely rested, and as hungry 

201 



THE INHERITANCE 

as a bear ! I was too eager for my bath and the tea that 
the forethoughtful Greggs had ready, to try to recall 
the events of the day before. And on the tray, between 
the sugar and cream, lay a small, pale-blue envelope ad- 
dressed in a hand that sent little shivers of pleasure 
through my incorrigible youth and health. After a great 
cupful I sighed and opened it. 

I sent to your rooms, but you could not be 
found. I suppose that when you get this I shall 
be ought I to tell you? But if you should 
make an appointment with Geddie, it would only 
be a mile, and then we could say good-bye. I 
shall be Mrs. Vale there, and it is Jeanne Bruel's 
little cottage my old nurse's. I shall never see 
that brute again the farce is over. Oh, Hugh, 
why did you have them play the Blue Danube 
again? And to have to hear such words from 
him whatever I have done or do he has 
driven me to Ulick knows. But Ulick said 
not to see you even for good-bye. You will 
burn this. For the first time in years, I feel 
free! Perhaps I had better say good-bye now 
Kiss Stranger for me. Yours, K. 

I could just get the night boat for Calais. 

I had but a five-pound note in my pocket, and drew 
my cheque book to me as I pushed back the sleeve of 
my cachemire dressing gown. Ah, well, it is such an 
old story, too trite to offer the practised reader of novels, 
who knows too well what I read there for me to insult 
him with a flat coup de theatre! Briefly, I had five 
pounds in the world, and my clothes. 

You may think that I have forgotten my sensations 
that time has dulled them that I was too stupefied to 
realise that my living, my education, my reputation for 

202 



I TASTE OF STOLEN WATERS 

responsibility were all things of the past. But you are 
wrong, absolutely wrong. 

It is literally true that I laughed, lit a cigarette, swag- 
gered into the little drawing room to burn the pale-blue 
note scrupulously, and said, with a stoicism that amazed 
and delighted even Hugh Gordon (late a wealthy Colo- 
nial, my masters!) : "Now, Mr. Geddie, we'll see what 
you have to say!" 

O barely One-and-twenty, is there any period of life 
to match you ? Eternity is a mere whiff of time to your 
spendthrift, ageless audacity ! 

The salt wind was fresh on my face, the slap of the 
waves a tonic to my ears. The rapid, musical chatter 
was by no means so strange as I should have thought, and 
I found myself, after a few moments, actually compre- 
hending an appreciable part of it. In the coach I fell 
into what might almost be called conversation with an 
affable young commis voyageur, and accepted his com- 
pliments gravely: if there be such a thing as a man of 
the world, can he possibly feel so like himself as I did 
that night? And under all my easy calm, my talkative 
high spirits, my pulses were beating like drums to what 
was I travelling, there in France, at night? 

The villas shone like lighted cardboard houses in the 
play. Every stage of my journey slipped easily on to 
the next, no mistakes, no back steps. Yes, M. Geddie 
established himself at the Pension Larue below there. 
L'avocat anglais evidently. And the cottage of Jeanne 
Bruel, ah, that was a good English mile, then, quite alone, 
beyond the quai, on the sands, for example. It held it- 
self apart from the others. A beautiful night, monsieur, 
au claire de la lune! Many thanks, monsieur. 

It is irrational, I know nay, it is wrong. But I 
would not willingly lose the memory of that mile of sea 

203 



THE INHERITANCE 

walk through the sweet, salty dusk. One doesn't walk 
two such miles in his life, of that I am sure. And those 
who try, of set purpose, to reduplicate that walk, cheat 
themselves and the emotions they stalk as other sports- 
men stalk deer. No, no ; it must be walked in good faith 
and but once, that mile, and if the lips it leads to are 
the same old lips that close on yours at the last, when all 
walks here are over and day and night are the same 
why, so much the better for you! But this is not for 
every son of Adam. 

The little cottage was whitewashed and glistened in 
the moonlight. Not a sound but the purring waves came 
from it, not a light but the great, full, orange moon that 
formed a path of shifting glitter almost to its door. The 
other gleaming windows seemed far away. 

My feet crunched on the white sand and I walked into 
the shadow of the deep roof. As I put out my hand 
to the clumsy hasp, the door opened slowly backward, 
as if by magic, and she stood trembling there. 

"I knew I knew !" she whispered ; "I felt you com- 
ing, but you ought not. Oh, Hugh, we are crazy ! I 
I never meant . . ." 

'"You never meant?' Ah, Kitty!" 

"Well, then, I ought not to have meant I don't know 
why we should whisper, Hugh there is nobody here but 
us. Jeanne is gone into the town to nurse somebody 
some Englishman has had a seizure of some sort and 
she may not come back." 

She was all in loose flowing white, with a scarf about 
her hair like Isolde, only we did not know Isolde then. 
She had no sapphires, no jewels of any sort but a bangle 
on her wrist with a dull, blue stone on it. Her left hand 
is on my shoulder, and as I look down on it I see that 
there is no ring of any sort there. 

204 



I TASTE OF STOLEN WATERS 

"Do you really mean " 



"I threw it into the sea!" she gasps, and her hair 
quivers under my cheek. 

"And this was for me ?" 

"Oh you! You are a child, dearest; a foolish, hot- 
headed boy! I shouldn't have written you shouldn't 
have come. . . ." 

"But you did write, and I did come! Darling Kitty, 
it's no use. Wherever you were, I should have known. 
Look up at me !" 

"I mustn't/' 

"Look at me, Kitty!" 

"Hugh, I I daren't!" 

"Ah, that's better. Now, look at me !" 

So at last she looks at me, and the great, secret moon, 
that has looked at so many of us, and must have learned 
to make so many allowances since she herself looked one 
night at Endymion, knows that we shall look no more at 
her nor listen any longer to the musical waters she is 
dragging up to us as fast as may be. 



CHAPTER XV 
In Which I Renounce My Inheritance 

1HAD never met the Honourable George Herbert 
Cecil until he became the late Mr. Vale-Griffiths. 
He died, as he had always prophesied, I learned, a 
second son, but not in any other respect, I suppose, as he 
had planned, for his demise was the result of an overdose 
of morphia, taken to calm his nerves (what he had left 
of them) during a jealous fury in the pursuit of his wife 
in her flight to France. His body was laid out in the 
chief bedroom of the hotel, with Jeanne Bruel in attend- 
ance, and as she bustled out on some grewsome errand 
across the courtyard and encountered me, dazed, and try- 
ing to digest the shock of it all, she screamed slightly 
and stared at me. 

"Would Madame not, then, see Monsieur?" she cried, 
coming closer to me. "Let him not fear to approach Ma- 
dame with the tidings, for one would have great wrong 
to pretend that she would not rejoice ! Truly, except for 
the money, I would not serve him even to this extent! 
But what would you have, Monsieur? One must live, is 
it not?" 

"I I are you Jeanne Bruel?" I stammered, hot and 
confused. She threw up her hands. 

"Am I? Truly, Monsieur, I am the same as I was 
three hours ago at eight o'clock, when Monsieur gave 
me the gold piece and found from me the direction." 

Here I pushed back my hat from my eyes and faced 
206 



I RENOUNCE MY INHERITANCE 

her, amazed, and she stared and stammered in her turn. 
Pardon, it was a mistake, the sun in her eyes "Mme. 
Bruel ! Mme. Bruel !" a sharp, impatient voice called, 
and with a puzzled look at me she flew across the court. 

I was too confused to note this incident very deeply. 
More clearly than ever before I felt the necessity for 
seeing Mr. Geddie at once, and even the news of Lady 
Kitty's release (for it was no less, from any point of 
view) did not seem to me to call for any change of ac- 
tion on my part. Directly in front of me as I turned m 
at the solicitor's lodgings, a lumbering provincial coach 
drew up, and a majestic woman, in deep black and heav- 
ily veiled, stepped with easy dignity before me into the 
little hallway of the pension. 

"The English lady? Yes, Madame, all was expected, 
Mr. Geddie was waiting, would Madame be good enough 
to enter ? And Monsieur again ! Yes, Monsieur was to 
step into the outer room. Pardon but all was in con- 
fusion with this dead English milord one could not hold 
a servant in her place if one turned the back !" 

I found myself in a sort of dining room, evidently, 
but used for business, for despatch boxes were all about. 
The black draperies rustled ahead of me into an inner 
room and I took a chair in the corner near the partition 
door. The house was perfectly quiet but for the low mur- 
mur of voices through the wall. 

Presently the door was set ajar. 

"Leave me to deal with him, your ladyship ; much wiser 
much wiser," said a dry voice, that sounded, somehow, 
familiar. Surely I had heard that voice say "much 
wiser" before? 

"Poor Grace!" a soft, clear voice answered. "Since 
Sir Wilkie has heard, Mr. Geddie, he has become so 
much worse that it is useless to conceal it from any one. 

207 



THE INHERITANCE 

His last attack brought on by rage, entirely, Lady Gor- 
don wrote, has ended in a sort of coma, and the doctors 
give little hope. You knew, of course, that Hugo had 
been sent for." 

"He is here, Lady Stacey. I have an appointment with 
him this morning. It was wonderfully kind in you to 
make such a personal effort " 

"Oh, anything I could do ! Thursday night, as 

soon as I saw the young man, I wrote to Lady Grace and 
sent it off by Lord Stacey's secretary. He handed it to 
her personally and brought back hers to me. They 
had concealed his father's attacks from Hugo, you 
know " 

"At my advice, Lady Stacey. There were circum- 
stances ... a certain unfortunate entanglement. . . ." 

"Pray, Mr. Geddie, do not mince matters with me. 
That is one reason I am here. My son learned from Mr. 
Vale that that his cousin was to be here, and I hoped 
that I might reach Hugo before he had seen any one. 
I am his god-mother, you know, and he used to be very 
fond of me. But this dreadful death of " 

"Exactly. And it cannot be kept from Mr. Gordon that 
he will soon be the head of his family?" 

"Hardly, I should think, now." 

"Then . . . then I am afraid that any further coer- 
cion along those lines " 

"Oh, Mr. Geddie ! Don't say that, don't !" 

"I regret to annoy your ladyship, but I fear it is best 
to look the facts in the face." 

"But, Mr. Geddie, this other young man this I don't 
know what to call him, but she has been quite mad about 
him, and we hoped so much that dear me, it is a terrible 
thing to say, and Lord Cecil is my second cousin, but 
oh, the harm that woman has done us all ! And she was 

208 



I RENOUNCE MY INHERITANCE 

such a pretty child! I promised Grace I would go and 
see her, Mr. Geddie." 

"My dear Lady Stacey !" 

"And yet, if she knows the truth about this Hugh Gor- 
don there cannot be any mistake, Mr. Geddie ! You are 
certain that that nothing happened in Bermuda ?" 

I hold my breath and sit forward on the shaky lodg- 
ing-house chair. I could not have spoken to save 
my life. 

"It can't be that your ladyship is taken in by all this 
farrago?" the dry voice sounds reprovingly. "The whole 
thing has been abominable abominable. Had I not been 
unfortunately away for two months " 

"But his money, Mr. Geddie he lives like a young 
prince ! Lord Pellegrew told Parravale that he had lost 
oh, -very heavily, at his rooms, to that Captain Renfrew 
of Colonel Protheroe's regiment. And Pullfit at Hope- 
stairs, you know is quite sick with it all. The servants 
are convinced. . . ." 

"Aye, trust them ! But I had not supposed you will 
pardon me, your ladyship that the masters, as well, were 
to be frightened into thinking that we were all in a 
play-acting scene or some parcel of nonsense in a trum- 
pery, romancing novel ! Shall I show you " 

"Oh, no; oh, no! Of course Lady Grace could never 
. . . but Sir Wilkie was very bitter against Sir Hugo, 
you know, and Parravale feared . . ." 

"Lord Parravale will do well to make a long stay in the 
Tyrol," dryly. "And now your ladyship must excuse 
me, but I cannot feel that Lord Stacey would wish me 
to detain you longer. You are, of course, perfectly in- 
cognito, but every hour that you remain this side the 
channel " 

"I know I know. The veil is very thick. Only I 
209 



THE INHERITANCE 

hoped I might Lady Grace and I had always planned 



"So I have understood, Lady Stacey. But human na- 
ture in the second generation cannot always be moulded 
advantageously, I have noticed. I should not advise too 
many hopes in that direction. Your maid is in the car- 
riage ?" 

"Kedge, yes. And Lord Stacey would send Mr. Un- 
derwood he stopped at the station, though. You don't 
advise my waiting for Hugo?" 

"Quite the contrary. You understand that my ankle 
I am forbidden the effort - " 

"Oh, pray, Mr. Geddie, pray don't try ! I insist ! And 
I had rather go quietly out don't ring, please. It is only 
to the carriage." 

The black draperies move through the room. I follow 
them and we meet in the hall. 

"Lady Stacey!" 

She gasps softly, then throws back her heavy veil. 

"Goggy Hugo!" she begins, then steps back. "Mr. 
Gordon !" 

"Yes. I only wanted to tell you, Lady Stacey, that 
you may set your mind at rest in one particular Hugo 
Gordon will never marry the lady as to whom you are so 
distressed !" 

She trembles slightly, but there is no dislike in her fine 
eyes. 

"Oh, Mr. Gordon, go home, go home !" she says softly ; 
"believe me, you have my all our sympathy ! Go home !" 

And then, as the kind sadness in her voice and her 
deep black clothes fill my ears and eyes, a spring is 
touched, and I know that I have heard and seen her be- 
fore. Her hair is gray, now, and her figure fuller than 
it was sixteen years ago, but she is the lady who spoke 

210 



I RENOUNCE MY INHERITANCE 

to Nana in Kensington Gardens, and the little boy in 
mourning why, that must have been Pat ! I stare emp- 
tily at her, and even while I stare, hat in hand, she sighs 
softly and sweeps out into her carriage, and I never see 
her again. Lost in a flood of memory I stand there, and 
the links grow, and I realise that Mr. Geddie's voice is 
the voice of the pepper-and-salt suit that said "much 
wiser, my good woman, much wiser" why, of course! 

Ah, but he has no starved nurse and hopeless child to 
deal with now! Farrago, indeed! And I walk in to Mr. 
Gideon Geddie, solicitor. If Goggy is to come, later, so 
much the better. I have more than one count to settle 
with Master Goggy. 

Mr. Geddie bowed slightly. 

"Mr. Gordon?" 

I returned the bow in silence. If my resemblance to 
the expected Hugo struck him, he did not at all show 
it. Nor did my ironic silence at all disconcert him, for 
after a moment he began to speak, in his dry, clicking 
voice. 

"I have more than one appointment this morning, Mr. 
Gordon, and much unexpected business thrown upon me, 
so I can promise only a brief interview with you, I fear." 

"Nothing would suit me better, Mr. Geddie." 

"Precisely. My previous correspondence explains my 
position sufficiently, I hope ?" 

"Perfectly. But you can hardly expect me to be satis- 
fied " 

"One moment, Mr. Gordon. I am able to satisfy every 
possible curiosity on your part, and directly. I see my 
clerk just outside in the street, and as I need to confer 
with him immediately, I am going to ask you to examine 
these documents in the outer room, while I do so. They 
are, as you will see, attested copies of the originals. For 

211 



THE INHERITANCE 

many reasons you will be as well alone while examining 
them, and I shall be at liberty shortly to add any expla- 
nations you may request, although I am sure that your 
intelligence (here he shot a sly glance at me) will require 
very little explanation, Mr. Gordon." 

He reached a packet from a stand beside him, handed 
it into my outstretched fingers and nodded to a freckled, 
red-haired, clerkish-looking man who entered upon a 
low knock. Even in my excitement I remembered that 
man, and smelled calfskin and green baize again at the 
sight of his freckles : he had wrapped his hand in a 
handkerchief, sixteen years ago, for my amusement! 

The door shut between us and I sat again in my cor- 
ner with three or four papers docketted together in my 
hand. In re Emma Esther Poise, was written on the out- 
side. That, of course, would be Lady Gordon, but why 
call her by her maiden name? For it was dated 1860. 
Ah Bermuda! Hamilton, Bermuda! Born to Emma 
Esther False, May 5, 1860, at Hamilton, Bermuda . . . 
aha, Master Hugo, so there had been a male child, then ! 
E. Kenniwick, physician and surgeon, Esther False, 
nurse. Now, a small slip, dated at some French town 
that I cannot stop to make out : baptised at the English 
Church by the rector, Frederick Goddestow Hugh Gor- 
don, sponsors, two blurred English names anJ Esther 
False. Now, a short half page of clear, clerkly writing, 
pinned to a longer sheet : I read the shorter first. 

Everything that Emma False has signed to 
is true. As she cannot live, I will take the child 
and do my best for it, as I promised my Lady. 
So long as the money comes regular, as they 
promise it will, and Lady Grace would never 
deceive, I will hold my tongue and make no 
trouble. And I know that Emma has no rights, 
212 



I RENOUNCE MY INHERITANCE 

and it would only be making bad blood amongst 
all for no good. I will go to America and bring 
him up right. And Emma may forgive him, 
for she was always soft, but I never will. And 
I only do this because if it had not been for me 
bringing her to Little Hopemead, for the dairy 
work, it would never have happened. 

(Signed) ESTHER FALSE. 

I begin to feel confused and dull: Esther False is 
Nana, of course, "my Lady" is Lady Senna. Then who is 
Emma Esther False ? What had the apothecary's daugh- 
ter to do with dairy work ? I take up the long page and 
glance involuntarily to the bottom : 

Emma X False (her mark), is signed there, with 
Hamilton, Bermuda, May Jih, 1860, below it : 

I, Emma False, am saying this to be written 
down, which I could never write without some 
trouble, and now being too weak. I feel very 
gone-like, and 'tis not likely I'll ever be up 
again, say what they will. Cousin Esther tells 
me that the poor little baby will be strong and 
well, and that she will take care of him and that 
his people will always send money. And I know 
now there is no law that they must, and that I 
should be kindly grateful, which I hope to ever 
be. Her ladyship has asked to see him, and 
Cousin Esther is to take him to her when Sir 
Hugo is from home. He is not to see him. Of 
course I did not know he was Sir Hugo, being 
new to Shropshire, and Cousin Esther thought 
only kind when she had me from Devonshire 
for the dairying at Little Hopemead Farm. 

'Twas because I was named for great-aunt 
False, the same as her Ladyship, and Cousin 
Esther thought only to help mother out, us be- 
213 



THE INHERITANCE 

ing so many at home. He asked for some milk 
and a piece of the loaf just before sunrise, and 
he was shooting, and gave me a hare for jug- 
ging. So after that he came early and I was 
always down the first. And I was always 
taught right, as Cousin Esther knows, but I 
thought that as I had the ring and he could not 
go to London yet, I should get my lines after- 
ward. He said it was often so in London. He 
put it on my finger and said I was Mrs. Stair, 
but his brother would not let him marry in Lon- 
don yet. It was a pretty ring, with a black pat- 
tern on it, in squares like. And then when I 
knew I was in that way, I was afraid and sent 
for Cousin Esther, and she took me on the boat 
here to Bermuda with them, but he did not 
know, for I went second, and ate with the maids. 
And they will never know at home, if I make 
no trouble, and her Ladyship has been very kind. 
Only it does not look to me to be right that 
she should lose her own baby, that would be a 
gentleman, and everyone glad, and mine must 
always be ashamed. But Cousin Esther will 
have him christened, only not here. And Cousin 
Esther say 'tis well known God forgives every- 
one, once they are sorry, but she never will. I 
forgive him, because my family will never know 
and I am going to die. And I loved him very 
much once, though not now. I am sorry about 
the baby. 



I sat silent in the silent, closed room, the paper trem- 
bling in my trembling hand. Through the wall came low 
murmurs and the rattle of keys and stiff parchments. As 
I stooped mechanically to pick up a sheet from the floor 
I saw another slip: it hardly needed study, for I knew 

214 



I RENOUNCE MY INHERITANCE 

what it would be. Yes: a death certificate for E. E. 
False, dated Bermuda, July n, 1860. 

The story was over, the game was played. It seemed 
incredible, now, that I should have thought anything 
else possible. As if the absurd melodrama I had con- 
ceived could have been regarded seriously in this serious 
old England, tied across with red tape, bulwarked with 
solicitors, signed and sealed on her immemorial parch- 
ments ! Why had we not thought of it before what I 
must be? In a flash I saw that, except for Aunt Addie, 
every one would have thought of it : what could an Eng- 
lish nurse, single-handed, have done for a little strange 
boy in Warwick? Poor Aunt Addie! I recalled with a 
bitter grin the London paper I had mailed her after Lady 
Stacey's ball, with its mention of the guests Lord Par- 
ravale, Lord Pellegrew, Mr. Hugh Gordon of Bermuda 
and the United States how it must have delighted her! 
In one of those sardonic photographic feats of memory, 
I saw myself stretched over an ivied grave near a Nor- 
man Church tower, and winced at the lad who had pitied 
the apothecary's daughter pity, from the nameless son 
of a dairy maid! 

I must have sat there for a long time, but no motion 
came from the inner room, and slowly, but surely, it grew 
clear to me that there was no need of any further inter- 
view with the terrible Gideon Geddie, and that he knew 
it and hoped that I did. I crowded the papers into my 
waistcoat pocket and stole softly from the room. . . . 

Only when my feet grated on the sand did I realise 
where they had carried me. The little cottage looked 
bald and glaring in the fierce light and the tide was far 
out and no longer whispered musically. Kitty, I knew, 
never rose till eleven, and as I sat in the lee of an old, 
half-buried boat, sun-warmed and somnolent, my head 
15 215 



THE INHERITANCE 

fell forward and I slept that healthy sleep of exhausted 
youth that recuperates itself, as simply as a baby, from 
the shocks maturity can never meet without a lasting 
strain. 

When I woke, long shadows stretched beyond the old 
fishing boat, and I felt curiously stiff. It never occurred 
to me that I had any other or earlier task than to tell 
her. My brief contact with the friends of my prosperity 
had left me with a keen instinct as to how I should si- 
lently slip out of those idle, happy lives : I knew, as defi- 
nitely as if it had been written in one of those certified 
documents of Mr. Geddie, that I should never see them 
again, that, mercifully, our eyes would never meet. And 
I knew that it was better infinitely better so. But 
Kitty ah, that was different ! She and I knew how dif- 
ferent. How could I tell her? 

To my hesitating knock came Jeanne Bruel, shuffling 
over the brick floor. She eyed me curiously, frankly, 
and in silence. In silence, too, she extended a tiny, blue 
note. 

Madame milady was not here? On the contrary. 
Madame was gone. It was in the billet. 

But she would doubtless return. 

It was in the billet. Monsieur was to read, here, in 
the cottage. Would Monsieur sit? 

No, Monsieur would stand. 

It was all a mistake, dear Hugh! We were 
both mad. Try to forget, and forgive me if you 
can. There is only one man who could ever man- 
age me, and he is taking me away. We are to be 
married, later, after Sir Wilkie dies, and now 
he is to leave me after the funeral no one 
will know where for awhile. I was nearly 
crazy when he went so far away, and have been 
216 



I RENOUNCE MY INHERITANCE 

so ever since, I think ! He would have killed me 
if I hadn't gone, and you, too don't forget that, 
Hugh. His temper is terrible. You will not 
see him he has given me a solemn promise. 
Pray go back to America immediately I was 
mad to encourage you everyone knows by now. 
Pat and Pellegrew are in Switzerland. You 
will soon forget me, and I will try to be glad 
of it. Except for Goggy, I always liked you 
better than any man I ever knew. You will 
burn this. Good-bye good-bye! K. 

I sank on the oak stool Jeanne had pushed toward me, 
stared at her, and as her beady, black eyes met mine full 
of a curious, furtive defiance, I heard my own voice, 
strained and harsh, break into a cackle of ugly laughter. 
Once begun, I could not stop, like girls in a boarding 
school. Even as I choked and held my teeth together, 
the shrill, crowing noise would push through, and some 
one, waiting, detached, disillusioned, behind my brain, 
thought to himself : "This is the way they laugh on the 
stage! I always thought it was theatrical, but you see 
it is real, after all." 

It died down suddenly, that nasty laughter, and most 
of my youth died with it, once for all. 

I like to think that when the watchful peasant said 
mumblingly : 

"Madame had warned me that one would destroy the 
billet . . ." it was not with boyish grandiloquence but a 
certain dignity that I crossed the little room and thrust 
the butterfly, blue thing into the coals under the stew 
pot. "There was of course the necessity for ordering the 
mourning of Madame," the placid peasant's voice added. 

"Of course." (Was that Hugh Gordon that spoke ?) 

"Alors, c'est tout?" said Jeanne. 
217 



THE INHERITANCE 

"C'est tout," said I, and gave my last loose silver into 
her roughened, eager hand. 

"Monsieur would eat something?" she inquired, with 
her inscrutable, shiny eyes affably fixed on the top of my 
head. 

"In this cottage ?" I replied roughly, and left her bow- 
ing in the door. 

As I look back on the next two days, what most amazes 
me is not the course I pursued, but my reasons for pur- 
suing it. Is it so unpardonable that I considered, all the 
way across the channel, where to use the revolver that 
I promised myself to purchase? It honestly seemed to 
my boy's mind the only decent thing to do. I had no 
friend, no counsellor, no mistress, no money and no 
name. Mine seemed too soiled and insulted a life to 
drag back across the Atlantic. Indeed, I believe that the 
only thing that carried me over the Channel was the 
necessity for paying Greggs! In such crises we have 
all of us our point of honour and Greggs was mine. 
This is humiliating, heaven knows, but it is true, and I 
believe now that I date my first feeling of hopefulness 
from the day I paid that absurd, buttoned creature and 
felt my self-respect revive ever so little. 

I paid him from part of the proceeds of the Honour- 
able Aversham's famous "trousseau," from which I saved 
out one suit of clothes only, beside the garments I stood 
in. Next I collected all the knick-knacks about the rooms, 
a certain empty picture frame; a shell paper cutter; the 
contents of a small box left for me and waiting my re- 
turn, unsigned, unlabelled, from which, as I turned the 
heap roughly out on the table, a turquoise bracelet tum- 
bled ; a dog's collar set with rough turquoises. From the 
sale of these (all managed by the interested Greggs) I 
realised nearly enough to pay my small debts, as to which, 

218 



I RENOUNCE MY INHERITANCE 

curiously, I was far more anxious than the larger. Nev- 
ertheless, when Pellegrew's groom left a note to the effect 
that his master (called from London by urgent private 
matters) would be glad to consider Mr. Gordon's chest- 
nut hunter the equivalent of the little obligation existing 
between them, my mouth twitched in spite of myself, and 
I signed the printed form with the first thrill of real, 
healthy gratitude I had known for three days. I had 
but twenty-five pounds of debt, now, and on an inspira- 
tion sent Stranger back to the Old Kent Road with in- 
structions to Greggs to do what he could. He came back 
with fifty pounds, and I realized suddenly that I could go 
home to-morrow home? In the few honest, sudden 
tears that fell on the bare table that day, all my stubborn 
pride and black, bitter despair washed away, somehow, 
and I realised how gratefully ! that I had only to strug- 
gle up from this (after all) my first great, slippery fall, 
and Life was there, waiting for me, ready to be used, if 
I could only use it. And all my years of sturdy, Ameri- 
can common sense held up my head and reminded me that 
I, the essential Hugh, was precisely the same as though 
I could claim the honourable name I had dreamed of, and 
that my adopted country my only country, now would 
not be too hard with me, if only I could earn her respect. 
I was going to the land of the Individual: the land of 
the Family could have no more power to tempt and then 
crush me. It had been a boy who went to England in the 
first cabin six weeks ago ; I believe that a man went back 
in the second. 

The long, empty days in which I dozed and planned 
and watched the grey, tumbling water, dulled and soft- 
ened and obliterated that kaleidoscope that had been my 
life in London. When I stepped off the train at South 
Warwick with the Doctor's faithful old bag in my hand, 

219 



THE INHERITANCE 

I thought for a moment that I was the same old Hugh : 
I forgot the black stain and the deep gash and the dull, 
never-to-be-cured ache that had inevitably changed my 
heart from the fresh, unscarred one I took abroad. 
When I stood in the old study among the worn, familiar 
objects, and caught the delight in his eye, the unconcealed 
joy of his, "Why, Hugh, my boy ! It's not you !" it was 
hard to have to cloud his pleasure, as I knew I must. 
Strangely enough, in all the long, broken tale that I 
poured out, what shamed me the most was the wicked 
waste of my little capital. London standards were far 
from me now, and I saw clearly how my education, my 
very fortune itself, had been gambled away on that foggy 
afternoon in Pellegrew's rooms. 

He listened to me in silence. 

Only, "Poor boy! Poor lad!" broke from him from 
time to time, and when I came to that night on the sands 
by Etretat, he patted my shoulder and told me I need 
not go on. My feelings when the hot, shamed recital 
was over, and his hand lay so kindly on my knee, have 
given me an enduring regard for the confessional that 
real stronghold of old Rome, long after her miracles and 
obstinacies and blindnesses shall have been buried under 
the silt and slime of Time the remorseless. 

"Well, Hugh, what are your plans now? For you 
won't leave us, of course?" 

Here I felt on firmer ground. 

"I had thought, Doctor, of borrowing from that college 
trust fund my marks are high, you know and getting 
through. I can easily make it up by tutoring next sum- 
mer. Professor Wickham would send me a half dozen 
fellows for chemistry alone." 

"I see. And then?" 

I firmly believe that a direct inspiration (to use our 
220 



I RENOUNCE MY INHERITANCE 

fathers' quaint phrase) came to me then. I thought, in 
a lightning flash, of Rob, nearly through the law school, 
of Hux, firmly established at the First National Bank, 
of Bert the unsteady, of poor, sickly Cary, and of how 
none of them had realised the hope of their father's heart. 
I thought of what he had been to me. I thought of what 
this generous, free forgiveness had been (for he had 
not one harsh word for me), and I thought of what I 
could do to pay him back. 

"Why, doctor," I said, flushing, "if you think that this 
this history of mine could be got over, I should like 
to put in a lot of science this year, and if there was any 
chance of a medical college scholarship, I could take up 
your trade." 

"Hugh !" 

His face shone. 

"You don't mean it?" 

"Of course, if people got to know that I had no right 
to my name " 

"Dear boy," he said, taking my ready hand, "I meant 
to do this befpre you said what has done me more good 
than if you came back with a fortune. I am all the more 
glad to say it now. Will you let your old name be 
buried in your poor mother's grave, Hugh, and take 
mine ours ? You are legally a child, you know, my boy, 
and shall we call those mistakes and and wrongdoings 
the errors of the child, and believe that you will help me 
to keep my name clear from them?" 

I think the grip I gave that warm, kindly hand meant 
all the words I couldn't have said to him. 

It was all very simply managed. In a very few days 
the signs and seals and foolscap that made me Hugh 
Caldwell were deposited in one of those mysterious black 
tin boxes that swallow such things, and none of the boys 

221 



THE INHERITANCE 

knew any more than that my relations with my guardians 
had proved unsatisfactory to me and that I had decided 
to help the Doctor in his profession so soon as I should 
be prepared for it. Only Rob made a few objections on 
the score of property division and expense, but when he 
realised that even if I failed to win one of the half dozen 
good scholarships open to me, I was perfectly capable 
of repaying any loan of his father's by tutoring in the 
summer, and that nothing would induce me to ac- 
cept my further education on the score of adoption, he 
withdrew all his objections ceremoniously and even, in 
a somewhat patronising letter (which led me to suspect 
that he was not without an inkling, anyway, of what my 
English discoveries had been), thanked me for making 
up to his father his disappointment in having no doctor 
son to leave in Warwick. Hux was uninterested, Bert 
delighted and Gary noncommittal. 

I felt rather ashamed when the Doctor reminded me 
that it would be only right to tell our plans to Nana, and 
hastened with him to the hospital, which had been com- 
pleted and equipped in my absence. The little cottage 
was rented, now, all pretense of Chrissy's living any- 
where but with us had been dropped when her father had 
left the old house in the spring for a Mexican exploring 
expedition, and Nana, in fresh blue-and-white stripes, bib 
apron and snowy cap, a basket of keys at her belt and 
six nurses under her matronship, seemed farther away 
from us than since we came to Warwick, she and I. 

Dr. Caldwell had put it very simply to her, repeating 
his phrase of my sad little history being buried in that 
poor unwreathed grave in Bermuda ; and she had wiped 
her eyes frankly and accepted his tribute to her faith- 
fulness and silence with her own quiet dignity. 

"Indeed, Doctor, I did the best I could, as Master 

222 



I RENOUNCE MY INHERITANCE 

Hugh knows," she said choking, "and I'm as glad as 
never was that he's to have such a home !" 

We shook hands all 'round and said no more : the one 
effort I had made at breaking her reserve had met with 
such immovable reticence that I had withdrawn, ashamed 
of the attempt, which a little consideration showed to have 
been cruel to her, since she had quietly admitted the truth 
of the documents I had brought back, adding that all of 
it was better forgotten, now, things being as they were. 

"Good, faithful creature!" said the Doctor warmly; 
"you'll never forget what she's done, Hugh !" 

"No, nor what you've done for her!" I insisted, and 
he laughed and called me his most devoted son which, as 
a matter of cold fact, I suppose, I was. 

I never worked harder than in the next three years. 
His pride was delightful to witness when I led my class 
and won my scholarship. Chrissy and he came up to 
hear my valedictory address and I hoped it covered a 
little of his regret about Bert, who had gone beyond all 
bounds in his idleness and worse, till only strict promises 
of amendment won him the right to come back and try 
an extra year the first of the family to whom such a 
disgrace had ever occurred. And yet it was not wholly 
disgrace, for no boy had done cleverer work at Yale, 
in certain ways. His original compositions, besides sur- 
passing everybody's, had been printed more than once 
in such a periodical as the Atlantic Monthly, of which 
treasured copies lay on Aunt Addie's table; his parodies 
of the different professors had been read privately, it 
leaked out, at meetings of the college faculty; his year 
on the college glee club had been marked by really artistic 
achievement; and the very teachers that were forced in 
self-respect to vote for his rustication mourned him 
openly. He was sent back to Warwick at Easter, when 

223 



THE INHERITANCE 

I was working my hardest and had given up any attempt 
at controlling him. Alas, once I could have tried with 
a better grace ! But I found that though my standards 
were as strict as Rob's or Huxley's again, my conscience 
got between me and my remonstrances. Who was I to 
preach temperance, chastity or economy to poor, gifted 
Bert? I blushed at the thought. An older man might 
have turned his experiences to account, but shame and 
disgust, fear of preaching and real distaste of the lad's 
sordid experiences held me back, and I could only try 
to come between him and consequences, and lend him 
more money than I could afford. 

He took over the organ at St. Matthews' that sum- 
mer and read every day with Mr. Applegate: the first 
money he earned he paid all to me, most scrupu- 
lously it made my eyes smart, years afterward, to re- 
member it. 

I tutored some lads for Dr. Crane all that summer and 
drove about with our Doctor, learning much that cannot 
be taught in laboratories. Hux surprised us all by mar- 
rying that very parlour boarder at Miss Hoppin's who 
came to our last picnic (somehow, we didn't have any 
more), and settled down in a nice little house, full of 
wedding presents, and became in three months a solid 
family man with a great deal of life insurance. To see 
him a church warden was very funny. He and I had a 
decided quarrel over a disagreeable, shadowy rumour 
that floated up over Bert and Fanny Pratt, who, as a 
typewriter and stenographer (at that time the new dis- 
covery in the line of women's occupation), was hand- 
somer and more reckless than ever. Bert assured me 
there was nothing in it, and I, stifling my suspicions, pre- 
ferred to believe it and insisted that Hux should. 

"And mind you, Hux," I said to him significantly, 
224 



I RENOUNCE MY INHERITANCE 

"Chrissy's not to suspect anything she has enough on 
her mind." 

The Doctor passing us in the hall we were driving 
with Mrs. Hux caught this last sentence. 

"What has Chrissy on her mind, boys ?" he asked, and 
as we hesitated, he went on : "I'm afraid Hugh is right 
Nana said something to-day. ... I suppose she is 
young for all the housekeeping and nursing the child 
does. I wish we had persuaded her to go to a term to 
Miss Hoppin." 

"Oh, Gary's taught her more than Miss Hoppin ever 
knew," said Hux easily. 

"So I supposed," he agreed eagerly, "and so good for 
the boy. But Nana (I shall never learn to say Mrs. 
False, and I must!) seemed to think the companionship 
of other young girls . . ." 

"Oh, bosh," Hux interrupted, "Chris always loved to 
putter and goody about the house, and she likes you bet- 
ter than girls, dad !" 

"That's it ought she to?" he answered doubtfully. 
"And where the child got her domestic turn passes my 
comprehension ! The house would be dead without her, 
boys." 

"She'll never go to Miss Hoppin," I said decidedly. 
"It's not the lessons, but the girls would tease her, she 
thinks. You see they remember what a tomboy she was, 
and those bloomer things !" 

"But there are other schools," the doctor began tenta- 
tively. 

"Oh, Chrissy couldn't be a school girl !" I cried, laugh- 
ing; "she's mended and made puddings and held Aunt 
Addie's wool too long !" 

Nevertheless the seed had dropped, and before I went 
off to Johns Hopkins, Nana, Bert and I had actually 

225 



THE INHERITANCE 

taken Chrissy off to New York and fitted her out from 
a memorandum list of Mrs. Hux with a duplicate supply 
of that well-dressed little woman's school wardrobe. 
Nana's decent, respectful black, and Bert's airy aristoc- 
racy and insistence on the best of everything convinced 
the metropolitan princess that served us of our right to 
deep consideration; and truly, when I beheld Chrissy 
blushing in her modish basque and bright, scarlet-winged 
hat, when the extraordinary tournure of the 8o's gave 
her hitherto indeterminate figure the sudden effect of 
womanly fashion and importance, when she dimpled at 
the Doctor's birthday watch and bridled under her piled- 
up hair, I realised suddenly that we had nearly cheated 
her of her birthright of girlhood. 

Weeping and laughing and begging us not to forget 
to write, she went away from us to a famous Connecti- 
cut finishing school, and I forwarded the Professor's warm 
if absent-minded approval in two letters, and said good- 
bye in my turn. It was to be hard work for me, now, 
and after a year of it I was only too glad to spend my 
first long vacation in highly remunerative tutoring in the 
South. If I was not intensely enthusiastic for the work's 
own sake, the Doctor's delight in my honours and little 
successes, his pride in my announcement that another 
summer's hospital work would win me my diploma and 
send me back to Warwick a full-fledged M. D., spurred 
me on, and reconciled me to two solid years of absence 
from the place I loved best on earth, the place that had 
twined into my growing fibres and made me what I was 
my home. 



CHAPTER XVI 
In Which We Settle Down 

BY the time I had grown used to the "M. D." after 
my name on the little black sign under the Doc- 
tor's, everybody, I believe, was used to the 
"Hugh Caldwell" that preceded it. Indeed, I had been 
"one of the Caldwell boys" so long, that the whole thing 
seems to have made but the slightest ripple in South 
Warwick. It appeared to be generally understood that 
I had been dissatisfied with the terms of my "inheritance 
matters" as Aunt Addie called them, and preferred to 
relinquish their (presumable) advantages for the inde- 
pendence of American citizenship a preference consid- 
ered highly creditable to me. I had been strongly for 
telling Aunt Addie all about it for telling everybody, in 
fact, and chafed not a little at the Doctor's decision 
against this. 

"That's all buried, Hughie you're my son, now," he 
would say quietly; "there's been enough romancing 
poor Addie!" 

And he always made me feel, somehow, that my proud 
humility would have been rather melodramatic . . . 
well, well, he used to throw cold water on my literary 
aspirations and try to make me believe I hadn't the talent 
for it, and maybe these very efforts prove him right ! 

It was such a blow to him when Robert flatly refused 
to take up his profession, and Huxley followed Rob. 
There was no chance of poor Bert, of course, and Gary 

227 



THE INHERITANCE 

was always delicate. So if I had failed him but of 
course I wouldn't have failed him ; I wouldn't have been 
fit to black my humblest reader's shoes if I had failed 
him. I'd have been a plumber or a photographer or a 
missionary to China, if he'd set his heart on it. And 
I'm eternally glad he never knew that absurd thrill of 
jealousy I felt when Bert had that first little sketch of 
his accepted by the Atlantic Monthly. 

Ah, well, it's all over now. I'm no writer, of course, 
and never shall be. Never should have been, probably, 
and I've never laboured under the delusion that the world 
lost much when my hankerings after literature were sup- 
pressed. But I believe nine men out of ten will, if they 
tell the truth, confess to a sneaking feeling that the ca- 
reer they failed of or refused or found too late would 
have proved their happiest field of endeavour just as 
a woman is always sure that the child that died would 
have been her finest, the flower of the flock ! 

It would have been the merest affectation not to realise 
what I was to him. Bert had never taken his degree, 
after all, but had drifted into the position of assistant 
organist and choir master, and, with the small salary car- 
ried by this post, occasional cheques from the periodicals 
and what we feared to be less creditable winnings, just 
managed to avoid asking for more money than was harm- 
lessly normal in his case. In spite of his uncertain repu- 
tation, he was wonderfully popular, and his uniform good 
temper, easy, humorous laugh and bright jokes were, 
as a matter of fact, the pleasantest things about the house 
during the few months we were together there. 

For it was not a gay household, just then, it must be 
confessed. Aunt Addie was periodically overset with 
her increasing sciatica and totally unable to cope with 
the relays of servants that ebbed and flowed through the 

228 



WE SETTLE DOWN 

house. Gary, though better tempered than he had been 
as a boy, was a confirmed invalid, and needed niceties of 
temperature and diet. Rob we scarcely saw once a year, 
though reports of him as junior counsel came through 
the papers. Huxley was buried deep in the bosom of 
his family a real family, now, with two little daughters 
and Mrs. Huxley unfortunately didn't get on with 
Aunt Addie. 

"How we miss Nana!" Aunt Addie murmured queru- 
lously one evening, when only Bert's gay nonsense had 
rendered the half-cooked mutton endurable and the Doc- 
tor and he together had retired nearly exhausted from 
a struggle with the furnace. 

"Nana!" the Doctor burst out impetuously, "are you 
crazy, Addie? It's Chrissy that sets us straight and has 
these two years !" 

Chrissy had spent this last summer in unprecedented 
visiting, insisted upon by the generous Doctor, and what 
her loss had been we only realised when she came back 
to us. Nor was the reason for her coming too sad to 
those who knew the child's odd history, though to a 
stranger her double loss might well have seemed tragic. 

Her father had taken to irregular absences on lecturing 
tours, begun, the Doctor confided to me, in his opinion, 
to render impossible Chrissy 's frequent proposals to 
return and make a home for her father. One attempt at 
this had proved its utter failure, for the old Professor 
had become a complete hermit, amenable to none but 
the cross mulattress, and lived in a wilderness of manu- 
scripts, oblivious to the ardent young life that seemed 
only to fatigue and embarrass him. 

I was called there suddenly by a hasty message from 
Nana, to find the strange old scholar, who had always a 
fondness for me, and had summoned me before, in pref- 

229 



THE INHERITANCE 

erence to his older friend the Doctor, in the final coma 
that follows severe paralytic shock. I did not dare leave 
him, and even as I sat by his book-piled couch, the end 
came. He roused himself, pressed my hand, attempted 
a smile, then suddenly shifted his eyes and appeared to 
listen intently. 

"Very well, my dear," he articulated awkwardly, "I 
understand I am coming." 

And so Christopher Vereker died, and by the time we 
were enabled to reach Chrissy, who had gone up to one 
of the Adirondack camps that began to be fashionable 
just then, we had learned that Mrs. Vereker, that myste- 
rious woman, had breathed her last but a few moments 
before her husband. She seemed to have had no definite 
disease, but ceased to live, quietly, with a book in her 
hand and an untouched tray before her, and her body, by 
her own desire, expressed in a letter just begun to her 
husband, was brought to Warwick, and they were buried 
in one grave, more closely united, in their own strange 
way, I firmly believe, than we ever knew. 

Chrissy was no such surprise to the others, who had 
seen her, at school intervals, for two years, but I had 
to rub my eyes at the handsome, dark-eyed young woman 
whose black dress showed her firm, strong figure to such 
advantage, while the little white lawn bands at neck and 
wrists threw out the rich red of her cheeks and the 
smooth rolls of her abundant black-brown hair. 

Her sterling good sense kept her from any morbidness 
of regret or grief indeed, we all knew that the Doctor's 
death would have been a far keener blow to her. The 
simple formalities of the funeral were soon past, and 
the dignified regrets of his scientific confreres all over 
the world of letters were a real pride and pleasure to her. 
Her mother, she confessed frankly to me, seemed less real 

230 



WE SETTLE DOWN 

to her than Aunt Addie, and indeed it was touching to 
see how Aunt Addie brightened and improved, once she 
was in the house again. Chrissy finished her sentences 
and heard her complaints and restored her self-confidence 
for it was a great shock to poor Aunt Addie to dis- 
cover that the awkward, shy girl whom she believed her- 
self to have rendered fit for society was the real main- 
spring of the home mechanism. 

Although the Professor's affairs turned out to have 
been highly involved, so that for a few days poor Chris- 
sy's outlook seemed sadly limited, the sale of some Ber- 
muda property of her mother's and the discovery (by 
Hux, of all people in the world, we thought!) that the 
old savant was possessed of some highly valuable books 
and collections, assured her finally of a slender income 
that did not seem so tiny in South Warwick, when one 
considered that her home was, as a matter of course, 
with us. 

Her little room at the end of the hall was no longer 
considered suitable, and I suppose it was the rearrange- 
ment of sleeping places, consequent to her clever sugges- 
tion of giving the Doctor a sort of secondary sitting room, 
opening out of the office, for his bedroom, thus sparing 
Aunt Addie the tinklings of his bed telephone, that set 
us at the complete renovating of the comfortable, shabby 
old house. This change, hailed with joy by the Doctor, 
put Chrissy into his dingy, big room, next to Aunt Addie, 
and left, at his own request, the great play attic for Bert. 
He painted and stencilled and frescoed furiously, produc- 
ing in the end a really interesting, studio-like effect, 
crowned by the introduction, after superhuman efforts, 
in defiance of all advice, of the old square piano, since 
the Doctor, fired by the general renewing of everything, 
insisted on presenting Chrissy with a new, handsome up- 
16 231 



THE INHERITANCE 

right, bought at a great bargain from a grateful patient. 

The great art reaction of the 7<D's had reached our 
shores, and Oscar Wilde's discovery (for it was surely 
no less!) of the cat-tail and the Japanese fan, the dim, 
shaded "dado" (now as extinct as the dodo), the neutral 
backgrounds, and the severe furniture, were fresh and 
keen to our travelled Chrissy, and though it is past and 
gone now, and I visit my patients among sanitary wall 
tints and washable decorations, it all seemed very im- 
pressive and advanced then ; and really, scattered among 
the good solid pieces and restful old engravings that 
Bert's impatient scorn could not shame off the new- 
papered walls, relieved by fresh hangings and crisp white 
window petticoats, lighted by the sun that had always 
had plenty of bright panes to enter by, in that south- 
facing house, the new "jugs and rugs and mugs," as the 
Doctor called them, did not look incongruous. 

A beautiful service of Canton blue from the Vereker 
pantries banished the remnants left us by kitchen incum- 
bents; the wicker pieces brought from Bermuda, ruf- 
fled in chintz pillows, gave a quaint continental air and 
made the formal "parlour" a real living room ; the dozen 
good oils and water colours a long professional career 
had gradually accumulated in the way of bequests were 
reframed and hung by Bert, whose customary irritating 
idleness yielded, as always, when he was really inter- 
ested, to a fit of hard working worth two ordinary men's ; 
and unexpected treasures of old embroideries, carved 
wood, glass and ivory turned up from the Professor's un- 
touched chests, and made a pleasing variety in our old 
routine. Carpets were torn scornfully from bedroom 
floors, Chinese mattings and painted wood freshened the 
upper rooms out of all belief; old fireplaces were un- 
blocked and grates re-established; Nana (who could al- 

232 



WE SETTLE DOWN 

ways find time for Miss Chrissy, Aunt Addie complained) 
appeared miraculously and consulted over lists of linen, 
pillows and bedroom china, and last of all the Doctor suc- 
cumbed to the general fever and ordered the house and 
stable repainted, while Thomas requisitioned a new lawn 
mower and trimmed the privet hedge till his arm ached. 

Chrissy was in her element, mending, polishing, list- 
ing and arranging. With Bert as head assistant she ac- 
complished wonders, and was never too tired to play 
and sing for us in the autumn evenings, so that we were 
positively jealous of the neighbours who would persist 
in dropping in to see her. I don't believe that either of 
her musical accomplishments was of the first class: she 
had learned them too late for that, and was not naturally 
of the dramatic temperament. But her ear was true and 
her touch sure, and the pieces she had learned most 
carefully all old favourites of the Doctor showed in 
what spirit she had forced her fingers to their task. It 
was very sweet to us, her music, and so was her reading, 
which she did unusually well. In her characteristic 
methodical way she had spent many holiday evenings in 
dividing the complete works of Dickens into evening por- 
tions for the year; and Bert, always caught by the hu- 
mour of such ideas, had actually ripped a set of the great 
novelist apart, and bound each week's reading in trim 
cardboard backs, lettered and even illustrated fantasti- 
cally. 

How the Doctor prized it ! How he showed it to all 
and sundry guests and patients and wiped his eyes over 
the work on it ! 

Everything slipped into place as soon as she came 
back to us. The great bone of contention between Aunt 
Addie and the servants the evening dinner she quietly 
changed to English afternoon tea and a warm, late sup- 

2/53 



THE INHERITANCE 

per, so that the Doctor, who really depended on it, for his 
noon eating was always uncertain, enjoyed a leisurely, 
nourishing meal at the end of his work ; and Gary, Aunt 
Addie and I shared with Chrissy the midday dinner which 
soothed the feelings of the kitchen contingent. 

She made calls, that they might be returned to Aunt 
Addie, too lazy and irritable now to undertake them, but 
vexed at not receiving them ; she amused and waited on 
Gary; she kept my office hour (a period nobody pre- 
tended to observe) free and orderly; she filled the house 
with flowers ; she even took over the poor patients Nana 
had been used to cosset for us, and all with a brightness 
and ease that would have been impossible for her in the 
bustling, practical days before she had learned to take 
life a little gaily. In some respects she was really 
younger at eighteen than she had been at sixteen, and 
the neat fit of her simple black, the very fall of her veil, 
made the rough-haired girl of past years seem an incred- 
ible fable. 

How often I have come in from a cold afternoon of 
bicycle calls (for I insisted that I couldn't yet afford a 
horse, to Bert's disgust and his father's pride) to meet 
around the bright tea table it was considered a snobbish 
affectation by much of Warwick society warm already, 
at sight of the glowing logs and the steaming pot, Gary's 
gay afghan over his shrunken legs, for he found he could 
nearly always get downstairs, now Chrissy was home, and 
the bright crimson silk umbrella of a lampshade that alone 
would have made a winter centre for the house ! It was 
surprising how the Doctor managed to drop in on his 
route for a hot, strong cup of his favourite Oolong (no 
one had ever thought to ask him if he had any tea pref- 
erences, till Chrissy found them out!), and the buttered 
toast and trim sandwiches he found there were often his 

234 



WE SETTLE DOWN 

only meal since breakfast. Bert had fewer mysterious 
engagements, somehow, and played endless cribbage with 
his brother, and Aunt Addie's brow was smooth and her 
game of solitaire only a pretence at the harassed employ- 
ment of old times. 

We chattered and joked and the young people got into 
the way of dropping in, on their way from skating ah, 
no wonder the Warwick Sentinel referred to us as "the 
old Caldwell mansion, that famous centre of old-time 
comfort and hospitality !" 

And there were some of us, by then, who well knew 
that all this was founded on a lonely orphan, who had 
never known, until she created it, what a real home 
might be! 



CHAPTER XVII 
In Which Bert Pays His Score 

LIKE many another man, our poor Bert was to 
learn that Life, that wrinkled old landlady, gives 
long credit to her favourites, maybe, but fore- 
closes grimly, by and by, all the same. It was hard 
that just as he had settled down among us and admitted 
frankly that no period of his stormy-petrel existence had 
been so really happy how hard it was that the old, dingy 
rumours about him and Fanny Pratt should struggle up 
from under the stacked wild oats that a steady young 
organist had long ago piled over them, struggle up and 
refuse to rot away in silence ! We ignored them as long 
as we could, and I wonder, now, if it wouldn't have been 
better to have fought the whole thing out, then and there, 
on the spot? I wonder, now, if we couldn't have won 
Fanny over, and made, if not a friend, at least not an 
enemy, of her? And I wonder, now, how things would 
have gone if those curt, scornful words of mine had 
never been said, that Bert listened to so quietly the day 
after I saw him sitting on the arm of Chrissy's morris 
chair, murmuring to her, while she coloured slightly un- 
der those long-lashed dark-blue eyes of his ? 

And yet I meant well God knows I meant well! I 
was sick and sore at the slow, creeping rumours and his 
easy disregard of them; at the happy-go-lucky way he 
took the easy comforts he had only begun to earn ; at the 
selfish indulgence of allowing himself to touch her heart, 

236 



BERT PAYS HIS SCORE 

that trusty, trusting girl we were all bound brothers to 
protect and defend her, with that smirched record of 
his, that I knew even better than the poor Doctor ! Was 
I the sorer because of a certain six weeks in the life of 
steady old Hugh Caldwell Hugh, that was often sup- 
posed the oldest of the old Doctor's boys? Maybe so 
though I didn't think so, then. And if it had been any- 
body but Chrissy! I can't describe how contemptible 
it seemed to me, how selfish, how intolerable ! They had 
been a great deal together since Chrissy had joined the 
vested choir that was adding new laurels to St. Mat- 
thews', and their jokes and engagements delighted Aunt 
Addie, whose sly comments really served to put me 
on the lookout and turned my attention to that long look 
of his and her pretty colour under it. 

"Aunt Addie !" I exploded, "you don't mean Bert !" 

"It would be the making of him, Hugh," she answered 
delightedly, "and Robert would be so pleased! He's 
doing so well, now, and she has a little of her own. . . ." 

"Very well, indeed!" I interrupted scornfully, "and 
a charming use to make of the Doctor's ward ! If Chrissy 
were your daughter, Aunt Addie, would you like a man 
with Bert's record to have her? Tell me that !" 

Well, well, who's to know? To just what extent are 
the follies of youth important, anyway? "Young devil, 
old saint" they say, and maybe my profession has made 
me a little cynical as to this and many other mottoes 
of like sort. Certain it is that time has softened poor 
Bert's past most wonderfully to me, and where I once 
saw the ink indelible, I only think, now, of the value of 
the parchment, and of all the kindly, human, winning 
chapters that were written there! 

And who am I, to say what wisdom that parchment 
might have shown, in later years? When I think of the 

237 



THE INHERITANCE 

old, over-scrawled vellums, tainted with what ribaldries 
of what ribald ages, that pious hands have trusted with 
the purest of gospels, I wonder, till my eyes, even now, 
smart and sting. . . . 

Well, I said my few curt words, and heaven knows 
they were true, and he listened, in silence, bit his lips, 
and answered briefly. 

"So that's how it seems to you ?" 

"That's how it seems to me." 

"All right," he said, "we won't discuss it any further. 
You're probably right from your point of view." 

Of course he was too young not to be dramatic about 
it, and the next rehearsal night Carol Lee walked home 
with her, and in the morning her eyes were red and 
she avoided mine. I took a bitter pleasure in it, 
and when, in a few days more, even the Doctor 
saw that something must be done in the Pratt mat- 
ter, interviewed the mother, and came home grey and 
old looking, I had a stiff satisfaction in answering Bert 
temperately. 

"You seem to have been right, as usual, Hugh," he 
said easily. "Fanny has a right to pick her scapegoat, 
of course, and I'll do whatever my father says. It's all 
I Can do. But I want you to know that I'm obliged for 
your hint as things turned out." 

"I spoke as I thought right," I replied ; "you know best 
if it was deserved." 

"Oh, it's always deserved in my case," he said lightly ; 
"we can't all hold the same views, you know." 

"The trouble with your views," I burst out, "is that we 
all pay for them!" 

It was so easy, in those days, to be in the right so 
hard to be wise. . . . 

There was nothing to do but get him away for a while, 
238 



BERT PAYS HIS SCORE 

and Fanny's mother was not beyond treaty. Unfor- 
tunately the Doctor's old friend who providentially of- 
fered a place on his Colorado ranch, could not start for 
the West for a few weeks, and those weeks were the 
straw too much for Bert to bear. A young fellow just 
come to town to take the position of head clerk at our 
leading pharmacy had fallen in with him, and the slight 
acquaintance developed into a close intimacy, like nearly 
all Bert's intimacies, a little beneath him. Young 
Fletcher was a weakish, dandified fellow, unduly wise in 
exotic "cocktail" mixtures, but too much Bert's admirer, 
we supposed, to have any influence on him. 

I like to think how we shook hands over the Colorado 
plan that morning, he and I, and that he said, "You 
know I always thought a lot of you, Hughie, just the 
same, if you did scold !" 

"And I of you, Bert," I answered earnestly ... it 
was really a good-bye. 

The few frightened lads who saw the tragedy assured 
us that he was quite sober, that it was only Fletcher who 
had "had too much." The clerk had persisted in hiring 
the gayest horse in the livery stable, and only got it on 
the representation that Bert was to be with him Bert 
could drive anything. It was all over in a moment : the 
plunging, backing animal, the stone coping, the terrified, 
helpless hands at the reins, the cry for help, the timid 
bystanders, the reeling phaeton. Then Bert around the 
corner, the despairing cry, "Bert ! Bert ! Help ! Don't let 
him kill me!" and Bert, seizing the bit of the furious, 
rearing creature. 

"Jump !" he cried ; "it's all right, Fletcher, only jump !" 
and as the half-drunken fellow lurched out of the 
phaeton, only to entangle himself in the wheels, Bert 
left the bit, pulled him out like lightning and slipping, was 

239 



THE INHERITANCE 

kicked against the stone coping. His death must have 
been instantaneous. 

I can see them now, as they brought him home on the 
shutter from the pharmacy, six sobered, wry-faced lads, 
struggling with their sick tears. There was never any 
doubt or any hope. Fletcher had to be held, to keep him 
from the river, and I think he faced us desperately in the 
hope of some crazy revenge on our part : I never saw a 
man so changed. 

"Dr. Caldwell," he said, shaking in an ague, "this is 
my fault I killed him. He was the bravest, noblest . . . 
and for me! Oh, my God, for a useless, weak devil like 
me ! Is it prison ?" 

Truly, it was the most characteristic thing in poor 
Bert's life, that quick, kindly death of his! He would 
have done it for a dog, literally, we all knew. But that 
brilliant, strong young existence, dashed out in a second 
for a vicious little drunken druggist's clerk it was too 
ironic. 

The Doctor was very fine. He heard the story, then 
gave the abject, trembling fellow his hand before us all. 

"There's no question of prison, Fletcher," he said 
gravely; "you have had a terrible lesson. If he had to 
die, I am proud it should have been to save a friend. 
Let it make a man of you, Fletcher, and make us all feel 
that it wasn't wasted I'll stand by you." 

Nobody who ever saw the look of doglike idolatry in 
the drawn, haggard face will ever forget it. 

It was the first near death we had ever known, and we 
crept silently about the darkened house, in that merciful, 
dulled busyness that few of earth's children can hope to 
avoid for more than three decades. The tragedy, the 
swiftness, the remorse, were all strangely calming and 
fatalistic; there was an odd, terrifying sensation that 

240 



BERT PAYS HIS SCORE 

it had to be, that Bert could never have gone on, some- 
how, like the rest of us. Only Gary was bitter. 

"That he should go, and I stay here a sickly stick 
of a weed !" he moaned and fought with us, and it was 
too true to deny, after all. It was our first taste of that 
inscrutable, inevitable Power that shakes our little human 
dice, out of the womb, into the tomb, never swerving in 
its mysterious aim, never yielding its implacable purpose. 

"What does it all mean? Oh, Hugh, what does it 
mean ?" poor Aunt Addie cried, gripped with the endless 
pain and pity of the question none of us can answer ; and 
only Chrissy, white and low-voiced, calm and accom- 
plishing everything, could quiet her. 

I doubt if Warwick will ever again see the like of that 
funeral. The Doctor tried to keep it very quiet, but even 
we, who had some inkling of the difficulty of privacy, 
had no idea of how the brave, useless, brilliant sacrifice 
had fired the imagination of the town. News travels fast, 
and no great public character could have counted on 
the endless black river of carriages that followed the 
hearse to the old cemetery. The house overflowed, the 
lawn was crowded, men stood bare-headed in the street. 
St. Matthews' choir could not have sung, but they stood, 
robed and silent, about the grave that could not be seen 
for the wreaths and boughs; his class at Yale gathered 
from all over, miraculously, and marched, two by two, all 
the way ; while Dr. Crane's boys, to whom his name was 
a legend for dare-deviltry and cleverness, came in a body, 
capped and uniformed, the old doctor, shaken, and im- 
pressive in his master's gown, at the head. Half the 
shops in town were closed, and the livery stable, whose 
owner would not take a penny from any one for a car- 
riage, filled no other orders that day. 

I have heard the burial service many times since then, 
241 



THE INHERITANCE 

but never without a vague wonder why the clergyman 
leaves out, "Whosoever loseth his life shall save it" 
so closely were these words connected with the ashes to 
ashes, that day, the day when the wonderful, beautiful 
liturgy took shape for the first time to me, as it must, I 
suppose, for us all at some one time, so that ever after- 
wards it is repetition, merely. 

Gary, of course, could only walk on his crutch beside 
us three, and when the people realised who the fourth 
was that carried the coffin, a long sigh ran through the 
great, moved crowd, and all the eyes turned wonderingly 
to the Doctor, with Aunt Addie on his arm. It was poor 
Fletcher, moving like one in a dream, his eyes fixed and 
staring, beyond tears, beyond shame, a man grown over- 
night ! 

Would the crowd never cease enlarging? Children he 
had tossed, girls he had danced with, loafers he had flung 
a dime to, teachers he had teased, and behind the Crane 
girls, weeping and veiled beside their sobbing mother, 
poor Fanny Pratt, in deep black. It was a tribute to the 
grave, high emotion of that strange day when little Mrs. 
Hux, Fanny's bitterest foe, actually spoke kindly to her 
and hoped she and her mother were doing well in their 
new home town ! But there was no room for smallness, 
now. The remorse we all felt (for how clearly it all 
comes out, too late, how much we might have done, how 
much prevented do we not all know it?) put us all on 
one grade of inachievement, one common ground of un- 
dervaluing, one rankling regret for missed opportuni- 
ties of love and kindness, and if I could judge all hearts 
by mine, It was my fault! was written deep on them all. 

It was a wonderful experience for the Doctor. He 
saw himself the father of a hero, one of the loved pillars 
of the town, the object of a respectful sympathy such as 

242 



BERT PAYS HIS SCORE 

he had never imagined. And when we came back to the 
quiet, cleared, lightened house, so familiar and so 
changed, and ate obediently what Nana had prepared for 
us, while she led Aunt Addie away, we realised, together, 
that such experiences roll over the trivialities of every day 
and wash them clean of all the pettiness of years, even as 
his noble dying washed his life clean, and that, after all, 
it is only Death that binds together the living! 



CHAPTER XVIII 
In Which We Ride to Meet Trouble 

1 ALWAYS think of the next two years as a sort of 
gentle autumn in our lives there is a mellow 
tinting, a kind of haze of quiet, falling leaves over 
it all, that confuses itself strangely, in my own case, with 
actual middle age. Indeed, I had much to age me. An 
unexpected gift to the hospital had put it on a vastly dif- 
ferent footing and the Doctor, as responsible for the gift, 
at the head of the hospital staff. He enjoyed this work 
increasingly and laid more and more of his practice on 
me, so that I became his actual partner and set up my 
own carriage of necessity we all bit our lips when it ap- 
peared, fresh and shining, at the door, that first day, at 
the common, quick thought of Bert and his jokes about 
my bicycle. Indeed, there was no day that we didn't 
think of him. Young Fletcher alone, who had charged 
himself with reporting weekly to the Doctor and came 
up from New York (where he advanced rapidly during 
a year to higher and higher clerkships in a great whole- 
sale drug establishment), to tell of his rising affairs, 
would have kept us in mind, without Aunt Addie's black, 
or the kind, solicitous tenderness of a host of neighbours, 
turned into friends from the day of the tragedy. 

Even Gary, who had conceived an unconquerable 
grudge against poor Fletcher, was wholly won over when 
he found that the faithful fellow was devoting his Sun- 
days in Warwick to the slow but steady collection of the 

244 



WE MEET TROUBLE 

riff-raff of town boys that hung about bar and stable, 
and the banding of them into a sort of loose organization 
for Sunday tramps and games. Every one saw and ap- 
preciated his motive, and even the strait-laced "Y. M. 
C. A.," new then, and many grades above Fletcher's wild 
and suspicious gangs, relaxed into giving shower-bath 
and reading-room privileges on certain stated nights, and 
finally gave one entire gymnasium evening, for the new 
game of basket-ball, to what was now known as the Boys' 
Club. Gary offered his services as night-school teacher, 
and at Nana's matter-of-fact suggestion, when the first 
shock was over, agreed cordially in the offer of Bert's 
empty studio as school and reading-room ; and when the 
boys, to whom Bert was an absolute hero, begged to be 
known as the Bert Caldwcll Club, we all, after a moment 
of shrinking, consented, and as we look back, now, to 
the results of that honest druggist's simple efforts to 
"even things up," as he put it, we can only shake our 
heads and wonder at the branching tree to which that 
little graft of manly penitence has grown. 

Gary seemed just then in one of those periods of wax- 
ing strength that had always characterized him at inter- 
vals. He was a born teacher, and the boys in the "Club" 
adored him ; though he spent much time in his long chair, 
his crutch became a cane, and I had great hopes of him. 
So it was a double shock to me when the Doctor called 
me into his office one afternoon, and between a smile and 
a choke, confided to me that he had given, if not a hearty 
consent, at least no refusal to an admitted engagement 
between the lad and Chrissy. 

"Chrissy!" I gasped; "why why, Doctor!" 
"I know, I know," he said kindly, "but don't worry, 
Hugh, it can't amount to anything, and she's absolutely 
set on it, dear girl. He says he wouldn't dream of mar- 

245 



THE INHERITANCE 

riage till he's absolutely sound, and and if it will make 
him happy while it lasts ..." 

"You don't mean " I said, sobered, and he nodded 

calmly. 

"Short of a miracle, there's no lookout whatever for 
the boy," he said quietly, "never has been. I've had any 
amount of advice, and it all agrees with my own idea. 
He would only have sharper and longer attacks of pain. 
And she feels she owes everything to him he's taught 
her all she knows, she told me, and really 'woke her mind 
up,' as she puts it." 

Whatever flash of irritation I may have felt at the first 
was all softened into pity, now. 

"Does she know ?" I asked. 

"You can't tell about a girl, in such cases," he an- 
swered wisely, "she shuts her eyes and says that she can 
save him. He thinks so, anyhow look at them." 

I turned and looked with him at the group under the 
yellow September elms, on the lawn behind the house. 
Gary, in his chair, was leaning back, gazing contentedly 
at the russet boughs against the blue. Chrissy sat on a 
light rug on the grass below him, one hand held his, one 
turned the pages of the book from which she read aloud : 
her grave, full tones just reached us. His hand lay on 
her smooth, dark head; one of Bert's dogs was half in 
her lap. 

"He asked for his mother's engagement ring for her 
and I gave it. You you can't blame me, Hugh ?" 

"No, no," I muttered thickly, "not as things are." 

We watched them, he and I, as two men of equal age 
might watch children: I think he forgot utterly that I 
was hardly older than the poor fellow under the autumn 
tree. And it was like some infinitely elder brother that 

246 



WE MEET TROUBLE 

I shook her hand with the diamond hoop on it, and 
watched her eyes kindle when she whispered. 

"Oh, Hugh, he does need me so!" 

"And you love him, Chrissy ?" 

I could not resist this, though I could have kicked my- 
self, after the words were said. But she looked straight 
and clear into my eyes. 

"Why, Hugh, how can you ask me ? Not love Gary ?" 

I was answered though not as she thought, dear, in- 
nocent, straightforward thing ! 

And so we went on another year, subdued, under the 
cloud of Bert's loss and the shadow of Gary's future, 
hard-working and busily happy, with it all, in what I can 
see now was a sort of merciful backwater before Life 
thrust us out into the rapids again, for our last long trial 
before she could give us our diplomas as able-bodied 
seamen! And only the gipsy who read my palm on 
Hampstead Heath and told me that trouble to me and 
mine was to come, more than once, along of horses only 
she would have nodded, as unsurprised. 

I was the last man to see the Doctor before the acci- 
dent. He stood on the sunny little porch, drawing on his 
driving gloves, glancing about him in his brisk, keen 
fashion with those kindly grey eyes that hid so many 
well-filled years in their wrinkled corners. He stood as 
straight as he stood twenty years ago, I thought. 

"Well, Hugh," he called out cheerily to me, "coming? 
Still feel you can't trust the old gentleman?" 

I had to laugh, even as I caught up some letters from 
the mail-table, and took the reins from old Thomas. Of 
course, he was getting on, though. Pink as your cheeks 
may be, between tiny white "mutton-chop" whiskers, 
pink with the clear freshness of every bodily temper- 
17 247 



THE INHERITANCE 

ance; bright and strong though your eyes may look out 
at us, and straight as you may stand, Doctor, with the 
vitality that no sickness has sapped since you were a 
schoolboy, sixty years are sixty years, and we know it 
and you know it. 

There must have been a bit of this in my face, I fancy, 
for I can see now the whimsical look in his, as he took 
over the reins, ran his eye over the harness and the shafts 
of the Stanhope in his lightning way, and sighed a little 
as we started off. 

"Well, Hugh, it's all right, and you're a good boy to 
me a good boy," he said thoughtfully, and I patted his 
knee and thought (who could help it?) of Robert and 
Huxley and Bert and Carey, and how little they had been 
to him when all was said and done. 

This, too, though I know I never showed it, he under- 
stood, with his abominable quickness in reading one's 
thoughts, and pursed his lips in his neat, trimmed beard. 

"Well, well, things don't turn out as we plan, always, 
Hugh," he went on, "and you've found that out, no doubt, 
without the three score, eh ? I thought so." 

We slipped along a good ten miles an hour, for Black 
Molly had a gait as smooth as oil and the village street 
grew sparser and sparser of horses, the fields and pas- 
tures more and more frequent. 

"How's this for speed?" I began, to tease him a bit 
and rouse him out of a little depression I'd been sensing 
in him all the morning; "how much better would you do 
in a horseless carriage, Doctor?" 

My little scheme worked. He shifted the reins to his 
left hand and shook his forefinger argumentatively. 

"Now, don't you cry down that horseless carriage, 
Hugh," he began, with the good old didactic ring I had 
hoped for; "that man is on the right track. There's no 

248 



WE MEET TROUBLE 

earthly reason why his machine shouldn't be entirely 
practicable. My George! it is practicable." 

"But the weight," I insisted, "the necessary weight to 
carry the power! You'd break the roads, without rails. 
And to carry the fuel and the awful expense and " 

"My dear boy, remember that my grandfather was just 
your age when Fulton took his Folly up the Hudson," he 
said quietly, "and I remember perfectly what the busi- 
ness men clamoured then !" 

"That's true," I agreed. 

"And how much have you put into S n's scheme?" 

"Five thousand about all I had clear. All the rest 
I have here," and he tapped his right waistcoat pocket. 

I nodded. That was why I was with him, of course. 
A man of sixty, with ten thousand dollars in his waist- 
coat, driving a high-spirited six-year-old Morgan mare 
over a lonely country road, was not exactly my idea of 
safety. 

Not that I didn't follow his reasoning. The property 
we'd come out to buy belonged to a crusty old farmer, 
none too anxious to sell, and especially wary of the Doc- 
tor, whose bloodhound scent for real estate was known. 
He knew keen old psychologist of a doctor that he was ! 
that a sight of those one hundred hundred-dollar bills 
would clinch the bargain if anything on earth could, and 
he had them and the papers all ready. 

"And do you really consider that rambling old hotel 
worth all that?" I asked him. 

Again he shifted the reins. "My dear boy," (again 
the wagging finger) "that hotel on that hill facing that 
view twenty minutes from two railroad stations on 
two different roads with that spring that orchard and 
garden, will be worth ten times that to the man that has 
the sense to realize its possibilities! That place, Hugh, 

249 



THE INHERITANCE 

is a Sanitarium. This country has dosed itself half way 
to the grave with patent medicines and cure-alls, and now 
its livers and kidneys and stomachs have got to get back 
to normal with diet and rest and open-air exercise. And 
where's it to be done ? On hills like this. Yes, hills like 
this. You mark my word, Hugh, in twenty years rich 
patients from New York City will be rolling up that steep 

hill in S n's horseless carriage, for a good German 

Kur!" 

"At fifteen miles an hour, I suppose," I inquired sar- 
castically, "on a soft road?" 

"Fifteen? fifteen?" he repeated. "My George, Hugh, 
they'll go fifty, boy ! What's to prevent ? You don't sup- 
pose they'll be dragging a ton of coal apiece? Why 
shouldn't they use electricity ? Why not naphtha ? Why 
not whoa, there, Molly ! steady . . . steady ..." 

For Black Molly shied violently, and we drew up, the 
Doctor humouring and soothing her as she crabbed half 
across the road. Like most good horses, she loathed 
shapeless, huddled masses by the wayside, and this was 
a man, a hulking, bearded fellow, shabby and dirty and 
half drunk, by the look of him. An old forage-cap was 
crowded down over his mat of hair, almost covering his 
eyes, and as he staggered up and put his grimy, black- 
nailed hand on the rim of the wheel and growled out 
something about the price of a bed for the night, I was 
tremendously thankful I was with the Doctor, I can tell 
you, for he was a six-footer and more, and an ugly cus- 
tomer at that. 

"Get away, there, will you ? You'll be hurt !" I cried 
angrily, as he took Black Molly's bit with a clumsy pre- 
tence of making himself useful; the clean, dainty beast 
tried to toss herself free of his dirty paw disdainfully. 

"Won't yer gi' me a quarter for a bed, boss?" he 
250 



WE MEET TROUBLE 

whined. "I'm a poor man, that can't drive my blooded 
stock " 

"It's a poor man, indeed, that can't work for a living, 
with your youth and strength," said the Doctor sharply ; 
"let go my horse, sir !" 

"Look here, boss, I've got to have a quarter," the man 
droned, half supporting himself by the bit, now, and I 
believe it was greatly rage at the sight of the mare's ten- 
der mouth drawn away that made the Doctor raise his 
whip and cut the fellow across the cheek, so that he 
howled with pain. 

Molly jerked herself free, but not soon enough for us 
to escape the torrent of vile abuse he hurled at us. 

"To hell with you, you damned stingy old brute !" he 
bellowed after us ; "I'd slit your old throat for a nickel, 
I'd " 

And even more unsavoury were the last sentences we 
heard. 

"Faugh !" 

I can see the Doctor now as he shook himself slightly, 
as if to scatter from his immaculate white duck waist- 
coat (he never was seen without one) the slime of that 
spattering drunken tongue. He was singularly neat in 
his person; the jealous young physicians in the town 
who had him to thank for most of their practise, by the 
way called him "Dr. Dandy," and "Brummel, M. D." 
As he had not varied the fashion of his clothes in thirty 
years, I suppose them to have referred to this spotless 
vest, with his shining boots, well-kept hands and close- 
trimmed beard, that showed, in his rarely wide smiles, 
teeth as clean as a hound's. He wore no jewelry but a 
heavy seal ring that had been his father's, and a thick- 
linked, respectable watch chain with a curious Roman 
coin, of great but unsuspected value, swinging from it. It 

251 



THE INHERITANCE 

had been the grateful gift of a wealthy patient and life- 
long friend, and was stamped in almost effaced Roman 
characters with his initials, R. C, and had been pro- 
nounced by experts to be without a duplicate in the 
realms of numismatics. 

His tongue was as clean as his teeth; I never in my 
life heard a questionable word from him. His favourite 
expletive ("My George, Hugh, I can't see the good of 
profanity!") was one of his most lovable characteristics 
to us who loved him why is it that our affections are so 
often caught by these trifling earmarks of personality and 
so seldom by the academic good points of our friends ? 
and I believe that what hurt him most when Bert was 
brought home from his first boyish debauch was the 
trickle of stained words that the rest of us took as the 
least of his offences. 

"I gave him a hard cut, I'm afraid," he said after a 
moment. 

"No more than he deserved," I answered shortly. "He 
might have been responsible for a very pretty little run- 
away." 

"Molly's restless to-day; she always feels the thunder 
coming like me," he added. 

"Thunder? We're practically in November," I re- 
minded him, but he only smiled and shook his head; he 
was a perfect barometer. 

And just at that moment there came a low mutter, and 
Molly pricked back her ears and the dead leaves whirled 
in my face, and one of those curious, haunting certain- 
ties that I had experienced all this before swept over me. 
Somewhere, somewhere, surely I had said to somebody, 
"Thunder? We're practically in November," and the 
brown elm leaves had whirled against my cheek. It was 
uncanny. 

252 



WE MEET TROUBLE 

The sky grew steadily darker. We drove in silence, 
and I no longer tried to raise him from the depression 
I had felt in him, for it was creeping insensibly over me. 

"If this blows up, I'll turn back; I don't relish taking 
her through the Millpond woods in a thunder storm," he 
said at last, and I agreed briefly. We all wished he were 
a little less exigent in the matter of horseflesh ; the tra- 
ditional jogging old grey of the country doctor would 
have given us more peaceful hours than Black Molly or 
her predecessors had ever allowed. 

"So we'll be taking back the money after all, Hugh," 
he said at last with a glance at the sky, very thick by now, 
and fairly menacing behind the angry flying leaves and 
the bare boughs. "By the way, has Chrissy any cash at 
all ? I'm pretty low at the bank." 

"She found fifteen dollars in your shoe-pocket," I an- 
swered demurely, "and a coffee cup full of small change 
behind the dining-room mirror. Then there was that 
ninety-six dollars she collected last week the old bills, 
you know." 

He couldn't help smiling. 

"The little rascal !" he muttered; "but look here, Hugh, 
she mustn't be too hard on anybody, you know. By the 
way, I stuffed some money under the clock in the office." 

"I don't think she will," I assured him drily. "Chrissy's 
quite right about the bills. You have no more idea what 
people owe you, Doctor than than they have. But she's 
going to find out. And then, she says, if you really want 
to give it in charity, you can do it a little more evenly. 
We really need new carpets, you know, and Thomas says 
he can't possibly humour the furnace through another 
winter." 

"She's been stuffing you up with all this, 1 see," he said, 
not displeased, though, and with the smile he always had 

253 



THE INHERITANCE 

for Chrissy. "Well, the child has a level head a level 
head. And you're backing her, it seems." 

"Oh, yes, I'm backing her," I answered simply; "I'm 
always backing Chrissy, you know." 

He chuckled, then grew grave suddenly. 

"She's growing a fine woman a fine woman," he said, 
"soon we'll have to take her seriously, for she'll make a 
fine woman, Hugh." 

I almost got my hand on the reins. 

"Why, Doctor," I cried, "she'll make? she'll make? 
She's made it ! She is a fine woman, Doctor !" 

He gave a little gasp, and as I looked at him, his cheeks 
actually seemed to fall in and his eyes sink back in his 
head. 

"My George, Hugh !" he murmured, "my George ! I'm 
sixty-one years old ! Sixty-one, and Chrissy's a woman ! 
And I was a middle-aged man when I helped her into the 
world ! Do you think she'll help me out of it, Hugh?" 

"Don't talk that way, Doctor, don't !" I begged. "Of 
course, she's only a girl ..." 

"No, no," he checked me, "you don't need to eat your 
words, my dear boy, you don't need to. You're quite 
right: she's a woman." 

A great fork of lightning branched across the sky, and 
as Molly reared and shook her head, he turned her ab- 
ruptly, cramped the wheel very short, and headed for 
home. I didn't answer him, for I couldn't. There was a 
pause. She slowed to a walk, and the leaves dropped 
and rested on her glossy back and the wind began to 
rise and moaned a little: the boughs had an autumn 
creak. 

I remember how that next flash lighted everything with 
a nasty green glare ; he had a hard time with Molly, and 
I was within an ace of helping him, a thing he never 

254 



WE MEET TROUBLE 

would have forgiven. But he got her under, somehow, 
though I could see it had taxed him terribly; his breath 
came short and I felt his knees shaking, against mine. 

But never a drop of rain ; only the rustle of dry leaves 
and the black clouds bearing down on us. 

Then it all happened in a moment. The very dome of 
the heavens cracked and split and roared; Molly gath- 
ered her legs under her and jumped like a rabbit ; a gust 
of cold wind blew the lap robe out of the Stanhope, and 
in an involuntary movement to catch it I lost the second 
when I could have helped him with the reins. The 
wagon swayed and lurched, and as that frightful crack 
and roar came again and a great oak near us ripped down 
the middle like a tearing sheet and fell close to her head, 
Molly gave a positive scream and danced in an ecstasy 
of nervous terror sidewise across the road. The light 
vehicle dragged stiffly after her a moment, then the near 
shaft snapped, the wheels tilted and my side sank down. 

"Jump! Jump, Doctor!" I cried, and tried to push 
him as I fell. 

But his hands seemed welded to the reins; he only 
stared ahead of him. 

I was wedged between the wheel and the dashboard. 
I remember thinking that it was all over with me, prob- 
ably, and wondering if Chrissy would find the money 
under the office clock, when Molly swerved again and, 
backing violently, threw me out, heels over head, as help- 
less as a doll. 

Everything went bluish, and I saw a bolt of fire as big 
as a child's head floating across the road; little tingling 
shocks ran through me, and clicking, snapping noises 
filled the air. Molly was staggering and backing, and 
the swaying, lurching Stanhope reeled menacingly, like 
the rough man we had met just there a little while ago. 

255 



THE INHERITANCE 

I heard the swish and fall of big trees, beyond in the 
woods, and the grinding of the boughs; it sickened me, 
somehow it was like human bodies crushed and creak- 
ing ... 

I crawled up the bank, almost crazy with joy to see 
Molly still backing and staggering ; she had not advanced 
a yard, and he still sat there, glued to the reins, staring 
ahead. 

"I can get him out!" I cried aloud; "hold on, Doc- 
tor, I'm coming!" 

But my legs moved slowly, as in those terrible dreams 
that haunt us so dreadfully, and she started suddenly and 
broke ahead just as the tramp rose again from his old 
hollow by the road. He was wild with terror; his eyes 
stood out of his head. He gave a howl like some great, 
dying animal and waved furiously with his ragged arms, 
and then I saw that the ball of fire was drifting like a 
balloon towards him. The blood was still dripping from 
his hairy cheek, where our whip had cut him ; he looked 
like a nightmare. 

It was the last straw for Molly, and she bolted like 
a shot, the wagon struck a great stone on the side of the 
road, and then, as the entire sky opened, a frightful 
lemon-coloured well, and blue points of fire spurted from 
the steel rivets of the Stanhope, the Doctor pitched from 
the bounding seat and was thrown hard against the bel- 
lowing man. His hat flew off and I heard the crack of 
skull against skull "it's concussion," I thought, in one of 
those timeless flashes of the brain, "and he can't possibly 
stand it. He's gone." Then a crash of noise that 
swamped thought and life and everything, the top of my 
head seemed to lift off and up, and as they dropped to- 
gether, I went out in a gulf of black noise. 



256 




"The wagon swayed and lurched." 



WE MEET TROUBLE 

I came to myself slowly, expecting obstinately to see 
the white walls of a hospital ward. It was perfectly clear 
to me that I had just been operated upon by the Doctor 
and myself, and soon, I knew, the head nurse would swim 
into the vague circle of trees and all would be plain. 

"I think these are bushes and rocks, but of course they 
are walls and beds," I said to myself calmly, when all at 
once a veil seemed to roll away, and I knew the sur- 
roundings for what they were and tried my limbs pain- 
fully. All seemed sound ; my neck and shoulders were a 
bit stiff, and I had the general bruised, bent misery that 
follows acute nervous shock, but otherwise I was per- 
fectly fit, and I got up slowly and went haltingly across 
the road. 

Molly, of course, was gone as clean away out of sight 
and sound as the black clouds and the blue lightning. 
Only the deep ruts of the wheels, in horrid, blurred cir- 
cles, witnessed her performance of how long ago? I 
could not tell; I judged from the sky it was about half 
past four we had started at two. I walked quickly to 
the roadside; as a matter of fact, I had no hope. No 
man of sixty could take such a blow on the head and live. 
One body lay, limp and straight, in the hollow the Doc- 
tor's. There was no sign of anyone else. 

I knelt by him and put my hand over the heart. Noth- 
ing, of course. I turned the head partly over and nodded 
quietly at the frightful, discoloured area I had expected. 
I was kneeling by the body of the best friend I had in the 
world, the man who had made me whatever I was, and I 
could do nothing for him. I don't think I exaggerated 
when I felt that I would gladly have given the rest of 
my natural span for the years he would ordinarily have 
rounded out. You see, I was a grateful sort of fellow. 

Whatever revenge the tramp might have been tempted 

257 



THE INHERITANCE 

to wreak on an old man in his power, he had been spared 
the trouble of. That was something to be grateful for, 
at least. I shuddered to see the blood from that whip- 
lash smeared on the Doctor's neck under the ear. It was 
rather gruesome and yet he had acted well within his 
rights; the man had meant mischief, beyond a doubt. 
Then something occurred to me, and I put my hand into 
his waistcoat pocket where I had seen him put the money 
and the papers. Only the papers were there. 

"Watch gone, too, of course," I muttered, but saw 
with surprise that it was still in its place, though the 
chain no longer lay across the white duck, and yes, the 
Roman coin was gone. 

It seemed incredible; the watch was of obvious value, 
the coin a dull, coppery looking affair, its very ugliness 
its safety. How had it caught the eye of that drunken, 
lawless fellow? 

"I can't leave the body here," I thought, slowly, for 
my mind creaked on its hinges, and things came slowly 
to me, "and yet I must tell Chrissy it must be me. How 
far could I drag it ?" 

I sat, a rather pathetic figure, I should suppose, squat- 
ting beside him, my hand still over his heart, when all 
at once I jumped and gasped, for I felt a weak, flutter- 
ing throb under my wrist the pump I had dis- 
trusted so was starting up again ! I put my cheek to his 
lips surely I felt something? Shaking with excitement 
I loosened his collar and felt for the tiny pocket case of 
hypodermic and stimulant he always carried ; it was there, 
unbroken. I moistened his lips and chafed his hands, 
and at last he swallowed feebly. What splendid vitality 
he had! I moved his arms and legs tentatively they 
seemed supple. The spine I dreaded to touch, but there 
was a puddle of stagnant water a few yards off, and I 

258 



WE MEET TROUBLE 

had a compress on the frightful contusion of the head 
in less time than I had thought possible. Again and once 
again he swallowed, and then, catching sight of the red 
stable blanket across the road, I fetched it, and with set 
teeth lifted him onto it ; it seemed to me, though I could 
not be sure, that his back was all right, but it was almost 
too much to hope, I thought. His eyelids quivered slowly, 
slowly, and at length, as I held my breath, lifted, and his 
eyes focussed vaguely on mine. 

"That's right, Doctor," I said cheerfully. "How goes 
it? Feeling better?" 

Still they searched stupidly ; his eyes, and something 
I don't know what chilled me as a small, cold draught 
of air chills a hot body. Of course, I couldn't expect him 
to become perfectly conscious all in a moment, but it was 
something more than that. ... I looked hard at him, 
and as the mind struggled back to those clouded eyes 
blank as the windows of an empty house I leaned over 
him. 

"Do you know me, Doctor?" 

The old question how many times have I not asked it ! 
Other men of my calling may grow indifferent to it 
(though most, I believe, do not), but for myself I have 
never asked it nor heard it asked without a thrill. Do 
they know us ? Has that absent something returned yet ? 
Has that rolling pupil, blank in its iris, connected yet with 
the wonderful, delicate cord along which the visible, tan- 
gible universe flashes its messages to our flesh and 
blood? 

"Do you know me? Do you know me, dear?" The 
sick, faint odour of chloroform too often chokes that ques- 
tion on their lips, those trembling wives that press be- 
tween us and the narrow, white bed, and we know the 
seconds are hours to them, the minutes eternities, and 

259 



THE INHERITANCE 

pity them from our hearts while we ask calmly, "Is this 
your watch, nurse? Oh, yes. No nourishment for sev- 
eral hours, of course." 

"Will she know me? Oh, doctor, will she?" How 
they peer under the swathing too-white bandages that 
cap the little faces, too white themselves, also, and press 
their hands over their poor, pounding hearts, those ago- 
nizing, thrice-pitiful mothers, pressing down and squeez- 
ing out the last drops of that cup of anguish mysteri- 
ously prepared for them from the beginning, coining their 
tortured breasts into counters for some child's thriftless 
spending, by and by ... 

And then that strangled cry, that racking joy, as the 
little lips quiver and the eyes faintly light into 
theirs 

"She knows me, doctor! She knows me!" And we 
murmur soothingly and the nurses bite their lips and 
breathe deep . . . 

Well, I asked the old question, the few perfunctory 
words that lead, like most well-worn phrases of the sort, 
down into the very deeps of life, and I asked it sharply, 
and with a voice changed even in my own ears, for I 
knew, as I asked it, that those eyes were conscious, that 
the great connection was made, the mighty circuit that 
separates you and me from the imbecile and the inor- 
ganic, completed and yet, he did not know me ! He did 
not, and I realized this and he realized it. 

He turned his head feebly and winced. 

"Don't try to move," I said mechanically. "I've put a 
compress at the base of the brain ; you had a nasty fall. 
But all right otherwise, I think. You remember, don't 
you, Doctor?" 

His jaws moved once or twice, and he made a rough 
260 



WE MEET TROUBLE 

sound in his throat. The blood was in his cheeks again, 
and with every heart-beat he was manifestly stronger; 
he clasped and unclasped his fists, and deliberately moved 
his feet from the ankle the spine was safe, then. 

"Come," I urged, and now I was sure my voice was 
sharp and high, "I'm sure you remember, Doctor?" 

He coughed. Then : 

"To hell "with you, you damned stingy old brute!" he 
cried hoarsely, and then as I fell back from him horri- 
fied, he ground his teeth and tried, his eyes flashing un- 
mistakable hate at me, to raise himself. 

I watched him sink down again and heard him cough 
feebly, without offering to touch him. I could not have 
moved just then had he died before my eyes. For again 
that tiny cold draught blew across me, and I shivered to 
the marrow. 

At last I forced myself to approach him. 

"Let me put back the compress," I said dully, "and lie 
still. You will hurt yourself " 

"For a nickel I'd slit his old throat!" he snarled at me, 
and then, as the torrent of filth that the wind had carried 
to our ears along the road, two hours ago, rolled over me 
again, the little hairs on my skin pricked me as they 
crawled upright, and I stared dumbly at him, for I was 
not listening to a madman nor, I would have taken my 
solemn oath to it, a man temporarily deranged, but to 
a man that did not know me ! 

He saw my fear I must have been ashy and did not 
share it. His lips curled back wolfishly (the horror of 
that grimace on those lips oppresses me still, in the 
night), and he tried again to rise. For the first time he 
dropped his eyes and looked at his hand, white and well 
kept, with the big old seal ring on it. The most inde- 

261 



THE INHERITANCE 

scribable look came over his face, and he stared blankly 
at me with the dropped jaw of an idiot. 

It was too much ... I heard the rattle of an ap- 
proaching wagon, stood up and waved my arms, some- 
how, and fainted in the road. 



CHAPTER XIX 

In Which the Doctor Gives Up Driving for 
Some Time 

1FIND I am hesitating, so reluctantly, to take up this 
part of my narrative, that I had best get at it at 
once and be done with it. You will have to know it 
and Chrissy will have to know it, and I must break the 
news in both cases. So it is just as well that I came to 
myself as quickly as I did, with two frightened men bend- 
ing over me, and the echoes of that horrid raving still in 
the air. 

"Drink a drop of this, doctor," said one, and the other 
added : 

"I'll get the old Doctor to swallow some, too, if I can. 
He's in a pretty bad condition, I guess. It was that black 
mare, I suppose ?" 

I knew them directly: they were the undertaker's head 
driver and his assistant, and behind them stood the tall 
hearse with its ornamental tops like a four-poster bed and 
its discreet pleated curtains. Two big, heavy blacks drew 
it, with long manes and tails, and they stood decorously 
in the road where Molly had pranced and pawed. They 
were proof against any storm that ever brewed, I knew. 

The raw brandy stung me awake, and I motioned them 
to keep it from the Doctor. 

"He's had all the stimulant that's safe, I think," said 
I, coughing. "The thing is to get him home without jar- 
ring, if we can. He he's completely out of his mind. 
18 263 



THE INHERITANCE 

It's partly electrical shock you see the boot soles are 
blackened. The fluid must have gone straight through 
him. There's a nasty contusion, too. Have you got any- 
thing inside there ?" 

"No, sir," said the driver respectfully, "we're just back 
from Millpond Crossing old Captain Banks's funeral. 
There's a few chairs inside, but they're all in bags, and 
there's plenty of room. Has he been conscious since it 
happened, doctor?" 

I went over to him a little unsteadily but, to my relief, 
he lay in a stupor, breathing heavily, but quiet. 

"He was conscious for a moment," I said, "but relapsed 
again, just just as I did. See if we can lift him in the 
blanket. I'm afraid I can't help you much." 

They got him in very deftly, on the whole, and we tied 
back the doors for air, and I sat cross-legged with his 
head on my knees, and the blacks paced slowly along. 
It was the most disagreeable drive I ever took in my life. 
I have seen too much of death to be afraid of it, and a 
hearse, per se, had at that time no personal associations 
for me, but it is not a pleasant vehicle, all the same, and 
as I sat there, cramped and frightfully uncomfortable, my 
old friend's bandaged head so heavy on me and his ster- 
torous breathing, like a rattling machine in my ears, 
which still echoed with that flood of ribaldry ; as my mind 
pictured with the femorseless accuracy of the photographic 
lens that look of idiotic horror as his eyes had fallen 
on his white hand and the seal ring, I tell you it was all 
I could do not to scream out like an hysterical woman. 

From time to time we stopped, and one of the men got 
down to inquire if everything was all right, and at the 
main fork of the road he turned, to my surprise, in the 
wrong direction, so that I rapped sharply on the glass to 
stop him. 

264 



THE DOCTOR GIVES UP DRIVING 

"Look here! Where are you going?" I cried testily, 
for the Doctor was beginning to moan and writhe a little 
and his pulse was quickening irregularly. 

"Why, don't you want to take him to the hospital?" 
said the man quickly ; "it's a good mile nearer, doctor, and 
I thought every minute counted." 

"Right you are, of course," I answered after a sec- 
ond's worry, "and push the pace a bit, Henry he's get- 
ting restless. Try a trot, and I'll tap, if it's too much." 

It was none too soon : he was muttering, presently, and 
struggling feebly, and by the time we had pulled up at 
the high horseblock and an orderly and two doctors could 
get out to us, it took four men to carry him, raving, curs- 
ing and kicking, into the building. 

The out patients heard and crowded to the door of 
their waiting-room ; he was due for an hour with them 
and here he was, but worse off than any of them, and 
they fell back with white faces. The nurses rushed from 
the wards (he was a great favourite with them) and Nana 
herself, her keys rattling from her belt, her good English 
face ruddy above the striped blue-and-white of her uni- 
form, hurried in from her little office on the ground floor. 
For the first time in years she was shocked out of her 
official demeanour in public, and ran to me, her hands 
over her ears to shut out that horrifying, pelting obscen- 
ity, so incredible from those calm, clean, friendly lips. 

"What is it, Hughie ? Oh, my lamb, what is it ?" she 
cried, shaking, and even though I glanced reprovingly 
at her, I put my arm over her shoulder: they all knew 
who she was. 

"A private room, at once, Mrs. False," I said quietly, 
and to the head nurse, who appeared just then with eyes 
like saucers, I added, clearly, so that they might all hear : 

"Delirium, from electrical shock and severe contusion. 

265 



THE INHERITANCE 

He got a terrible blow at the base of the skull. Tele- 
phone for J y from the city directly, and wire Dr. 

B n at New Haven : I'd like them to consult." 

Nana was herself again, directly more so, indeed, than 
poor Miss Riggs, the head nurse, who had been in at- 
tendance under him at an operation that morning; the 
poor girl's lips twitched nervously, and she steadied her- 
self by the newel post as she started up the stairs. It was 
a black day for the hospital. 

I lingered in the square, bare hall that smelled so per- 
sistently, if faintly, of anaesthetics and disinfectants 
odours that not all the flowers presented by the Ladies' 
Auxiliary could quite kill trying to think what I 
must do first : should I sit by him or warn Chrissy ? Such 
news travels all too fast, and there was no immediate 
danger of death, apparently; he was stronger than one 
could have dared to hope, and no concealment of his con- 
dition was possible, now the vile words floated down 
clearly at this very moment from the little lift they were 
taking him up in, and in his clear barytone, penetrated 
the place. I could not shield him in that way, or I should 
not have left him for a moment. One of the best doctors 
in town had hurried out on our arrival, and Miss Riggs 
was most efficient yes, I would go and tell Chrissy and 
the boys, for she must not come to the hospital. 

"Tell Dr. Hunter I've taken his rig I'll telephone 
from the house in ten minutes!" I cried to the second 
orderly, who came hurrying in from the men's ward, and 
jumped into the buggy near the side entrance. And I 
knew, as I drove off, that I left him with relief. I 
was glad to leave the best friend I had in the world to 
the care of others ! 



CHAPTER XX 

In Which I Break the News to Chrissy 

WHEN I pulled up at the comfortable old red 
house with the white, ribbed Doric pillars 
(Chrissy had set Thomas at the leaves, and 
the lawn and drive and walk were neatly swept, the 
shrubs banked, straw tied about the rose bushes, and the 
roof gutters clean ; the whole place looked trim and cred- 
itable to a degree, and she had had the fence painted the 
week before) the door flew open and she hurried out 
w*th Thomas at her heels. 

"How is he better? Is anything broken? Are they 
bringing him here?" she cried eagerly. 

"Why why, how did you know?" I stammered, im- 
mensely relieved, I can tell you ;" (blanket the horse, Tom, 
and keep him here, I'll be going back presently), yes, he's 
stronger than any one could expect. Who told you ?" 

She stood by the gate, with the wind blowing her 
smooth, strong hair into heavy wisps about her cheeks. 
They were flushed, and her eyes were very bright, but I 
knew the deep white she had looked at the first shock 
and how black her eyes must have turned against it : ex- 
citement always took her that way quick pallor and then 
the flush and her wits working at the double-quick that 
was Chrissy. 

"Molly," she said simply; "she came home with the 
Stanhope all down on one side and the reins dragging. 
They caught her at the corner, and I called up the bank 

267 



THE INHERITANCE 

and the livery stable and the hospital. Rob was at the 
bank. They sent six teams out in different directions, 
and Rob and Hux telephoned everywhere. They traced 
you to the Millpond road, and then that undertaker's 
Henry called up the bank. Rob started for the hospital, 
and I got everything ready here in case you brought him. 
Hux had to stay at the bank he's all alone there. I 
didn't think it would be right to worry Gary. Can't 
they bring him here, Hugh? Miss Riggs told me there 
was nothing broken, so far as they could see only that 
blow on the skull. Nana said she'd never leave him till I 
got there, in case they couldn't bring him. I'm all ready." 

The good, brave thing ! It nearly broke me down, she 
was so sensible and steady though I knew she was 
strung up to concert pitch, inside. Nothing undone, 
everything "seen to," as they say in South Warwick, and 
that quiet ending "I'm all ready" I could have wagered 
my last penny that she was. 

She wore a bright red bodice, a sort of tight-fitting af- 
fair that showed every line of her firm, strong-knit fig- 
ure: didn't they call them "jerseys" then? There was a 
stiff little white collar at the top, like a man's, and a 
little trig black bow to finish it off, and stiff little cuffs 
came down to her wrists: the cuffs were masculine (at 
least, it seems so now, since the women don't wear them 
any more), but somehow, when a round, dimpled wrist 
showed at the end of such a cuff, the contrast brought 
things to your mind, and I don't think the ladies lost by 
it at all. Her upper arm the weak point usually in those 
of her sex who are not washwomen was wonderfully 
modelled, full and round as a statue's, and the line of her 
breast and shoulder, unmercifully revealed by that red 
jersey, was like some wide-browed Juno's. 

"Miss Vereker is not beautiful, but she has a fine fig- 
268 



I BREAK THE NEWS TO CHRISSY 

ure, if you care for that kind," the ladies of South War- 
wick used to say, and I, and many others, were quite 
frank to admit that we did care for that kind. Aunt 
Addie thought her a trifle heavy for her age, and used to 
advise her to drink a little good cider vinegar three times 
a day and not to take twice of the beef, my dear, but the 
Doctor and I had something to say on that point, I as- 
sure you. 

"I think perhaps he's better at the hospital for a little, 
Chris," I began "the jar, you know . . . I'll see how he 
is when I go back." 

"But I'm going, too, Hugh?" 

"I think you'd better stop here, dear, for the present." 

"Hugh," she said, looking hard at me, "what's the 
matter? You don't have to lie to me. Is he going to 
die?" 

"On my honour, Chrissy, I don't think so," I assured 
her hastily, "and I don't mean to lie to you you know 
that. The only thing is, he's he's out of his mind, for 
the moment, and he wouldn't know you, if you were to 
go. The shock, you know it often acts that way. He 
he doesn't talk like himself at all, and it would be a ter- 
rible blow to you." 

She drew her eyebrows together and looked at me 
under that straight dark line. 

"Why would it be a blow to me, Hugh, now that I 
know about it ? Nana heard him." 

"Yes . . . but Nana is an older woman. And it did 
shock her, for the matter of that. Didn't she give you 
any idea of it?" 

"No, she only said he was very bad, but no bones 
broken, they thought. I don't see what age has to do 
with it." 

"Look here, Chrissy," I said, swinging the gate back 
269 



THE INHERITANCE 

and forth nervously, while old Thomas listened with all 
his ears, "I want you to take my word for this won't 
you? You'd be everlastingly sorry to have to remember 
the Doctor as he is now. Those shocks act very queerly, 
sometimes, and though we all understand that he's not 
responsible, fast enough, some of the things he says 
you've you've never heard in your life, and you don't 
want to. He'll probably get quieted soon, and then, the 
minute I think you wouldn't regret it afterward, I'll call 
you up and let you see him. Won't that do?" 

"Do you mean he swears, Hugh ?" 

"Yes," I answered, relieved, "he swore terribly when he 
came to, and he kept it up. It was a great shock to Miss 
Riggs, I can tell you, and she has to hear that sort of 
thing, you know, in the wards. But I tell you very 
plainly, Chris, I wish 7 hadn't heard him." 

She looked undecidedly at me. 

"Honestly, Chrissy, if if anything should happen, you 
shall see him, you know. I wouldn't keep you from that. 
But if he's alive now, there's no reason that I can see 
why he shouldn't keep up longer." 

"Honestly, Hugh?" 

"Honestly, Chris. Surely you can trust me ? It's only 
for your sake, really. I don't want you to have it to 
remember, don't you see?" 

She drew a long breath. 

"All right," she said quietly. "Ill go in to Aunt Addie. 
Of course she's dreadfully excited." 

"Of course," I assented. "I'll step up to her a mo- 
ment, and telephone before I start back." 

And that was all there was of that interview I'd 
dreaded so. It is often like that : the worst things come 
with no warning, and I'm not sure one doesn't bear them 
just as well. And when one is all braced for the ex- 

270 



I BREAK THE NEWS TO CHRISSY 

pected, it doesn't happen. Not that many girls would 
have yielded like that. It was a terrible disappointment 
to her, I knew. But she was too good a manager herself 
not to know when it was best to let others manage the 
best test, especially in women. Now Aunt Addie, at her 
age, would have insisted. 

I called up the hospital, and left the two women to- 
gether: Chrissy could always manage Aunt Addie, and 
she was very tearful and trembling, poor old lady. For 
Aunt Addie was not young, fifty-eight, though she didn't 
look it for a minute. But a shock of any kind always 
showed up her age. 

"How is he still the same?" I asked the doctor who 
answered my call. 

He seemed to hesitate. 

"No, doctor, I wouldn't say he was quite the same. 
Less violent. We've got him in bed and the head all 
dressed and got a little sedative down, I believe he 
fought that. The heart is holding out wonderfully. 
There's a good deal of incoherent muttering. We've got 
the delusion fixed, now he's sure he's somebody else. 
He says he's 'on the road.' Miss Riggs seems to have the 
best effect on him he hasn't recognized any one yet. 
Mr. Robert Caldwell is quite discouraged about it. I've 
told him it's not unusual at all ; that is to say ..." 

"Oh, yes, of course," I cut in hastily. "Well, I'll be 

right up. Can J y and B n get here, do you 

know?" 

"J y's on the way; Dr. B n will come to-mor- 
row by the noon express." 

I drove back not so fast as I had come, and marvelled 
at the quickness with which all had fallen into place. It 
seemed that this had been going on a long time, and that 
the worry and apprehension were of long standing, so 

271 



THE INHERITANCE 

matter-of-course it appeared that I should be driving in 
a borrowed carriage to see a man dangerously ill, in the 
very hospital he had conducted an operation in, that 
morning ! I felt empty, suddenly, and unreasonably tired, 
and drew up before the livery stable ; at one side, on the 
ground floor, Henry's wife kept a sort of little coffee- 
and-sandwich stall, and two or three men, drivers of the 
funeral coaches, probably, were standing before the nar- 
row counter with heavy stoneware cups before them. I 
threw the reins to a waiting boy and stepped in ; Henry 
himself was one of the patrons. He made a place for me 
respectfully. 

"What's the news from the hospital, doctor ?" he asked 
eagerly (the Doctor had operated on Mrs. Henry, whose 
name, by the way, was O'Shaughnessy, and he never for- 
got how successfully. He had been one of the old law- 
less gang that followed Rob and Hux in the pre-acad- 
emy days). "Still keeping his end up?" 

"Yes, indeed," I said, "though out of his mind yet, I'm 
sorry to say." There was no use in avoiding this part of 
it better get it over frankly. "You know a violent 
shock will do that, Henry. I don't know where we'd have 
been without you. Captain Banks would have been 
mighty glad to do a good turn to the Doctor, wouldn't 
he?" 

"Yes, sir," Henry agreed thoughtfully, "he surely 
would, now you put it that way even on his own 
funeral ! Those shocks must be awful things. I suppose 
anybody in that neighbourhood would 'a' got one, hey?" 

"I suppose so," I assented. 

"Reason I asked," Henry went on, stirring his steam- 
ing cup vigorously, "we passed a tramp, 'bout a mile be- 
fore we come up to you, on the Millpond road, reeling 
and staggering along, pretty well corned, we thought 

272 



I BREAK THE NEWS TO CHRISSY 

he was muttering and shouting, crazy like, holdin' his 
head why, what's the matter, doc?" 

In a flash my carelessness came over me. 

"Go on ! go on !" I gasped. 

"Why, nothing, only we wondered, afterwards, if 
maybe he'd had one o' them shocks, too, and wasn't 
drunk, after all. What d' you think? He was a big, 
tough-looking fellow." 

"I've been a stupid fool !" I groaned, "and it may be 
too late, worse luck! Can you start out two or three 
teams directly, Henry, along that road, and I'll send Mr. 
Robert Caldwell and the sheriff and any one else I can 
get. . . . That tramp has ten thousand dollars of the 
Doctor's money, Henry all he had in the bank!" 

"Lord a'mighty, doc, why didn't you tell us before? 
That's awful why he's got a choice o' three stations, and 
but there," he added with a real consideration, "I don't 
know what you could 'a' done more'n you did, when you 
come to think of it. It was neck or nothin' with the old 
Doctor, and no time for police work, was there?" 

"That's it," I groaned again, " that was just it ! I did 
the best I could, but well, there's a chance yet. Don't 
go unarmed, Henry he's an ugly customer. He threat- 
ened us on the drive." 

I left the coffee untasted on the counter, threw down a 
dime beside it and dashed over to the bank. Within 
twenty minutes we had started half a dozen men out, and 
I was telephoning from the bank to the four nearest rail- 
road stations. But I couldn't feel very hopeful: it was 
four o'clock . . . 

A quick ring checked me as I was half-heartedly get- 
ting in touch with New York and a detective bureau. 

"Is this you, doctor? All right this is the hospital 
Hunter. Miss Vereker told me to try the bank. See here, 

273 



THE INHERITANCE 

doctor, there's been quite a change in Dr. Caldwell I'm 
a little afraid it's the last flare-up. He seems pretty 
nearly rational at least, he's asking who he is and all 
about it. I can't exactly say he knows any of us here, 
but he speaks plain enough to Miss Riggs. I was think- 
ing some more of the family ought to be here; there's 
only Huxley, and I can't get hold of Robert, somehow. 
Mrs. False suggested Miss Chrissy's coming up, and I 
shouldn't wonder if it might be a good thing. He's quiet 
enough." 

"All right," I said, "I'll bring her. We'll be there in 
fifteen minutes." 

She was ready, of course she felt I'd be there, she 
said, ever since they telephoned for me and quite pre- 
pared, I could see, for the worst. We both were, of 
course. Sixty-one next birthday, you see. I had to tell 
her about the money, but I knew she'd never blame 
me. Still, when she said she'd never have for- 
given me if I'd wasted five minutes on it a moment 
before I did, I felt better than I had since I ordered that 
coffee ! 

We got out in silence, and I went up in the little lift 
with her she couldn't know who had been there last, or 
what we'd heard from him. Before the door we paused 
a moment. 

"You must allow for the bandages, of course," Dr. 
Hunter reminded her gently, and she nodded. "You 
know, of course, that he's not responsible," she nodded 
again. We went in. 

Nana was not there, a little to my surprise, and Hun- 
ter, a quick enough fellow in his way, stopped us a mo- 
ment on the threshold. 

"Mrs. False thought that as he didn't recognize her at 
all, there was no use her staying," he said ; "she's gone to 

274 



I BREAK THE NEWS TO CHRISSY 

lie down for a few minutes of course, she feels it badly, 
and she was up all night in the maternity ward." 

"Of course, of course," I murmured vaguely, but all 
the same I thought it was queer and so, I could see, did 
Chrissy. We would either of us have sworn that she 
wouldn't have left that bed. 

"Who's that?" 

It was the Doctor's voice, though rough and weak, and 
we stepped forward together unconsciously. 

"How goes it, Doctor ?" I said, as naturally as I could. 
"Don't don't try to move!" 

For as I neared him he actually rose on one elbow and 
thrust out his hands the look of utter hate and murder 
in his eyes was plain to them all, and the guttural snarl 
that went with it turned my heart sick. 

"Le' me at him! Le' me " I slipped like a flash 

behind a draught-screen, and left Chrissy alone there, and 
with a bewildered, baffled stare he sank back : it was clear 
he distrusted his own sight. 

"Th' whole damn business all wrong all crazy 

doctored rum " he muttered thickly, and they all 

looked distressed, and Hunter motioned Chrissy to go. 
But she set her lips and walked to the bed, though I saw 
she was white as she passed me; that snarl had been 
dreadful to hear. 

"You know Chris, dear, don't you?" she asked him in 
her clear, firm voice, and we all held our breaths. 

Hunter told me afterward that the colour flooded into 
her cheeks as soon as she spoke, and that she was as 
red as her bodice. He never saw her handsomer, he said. 

There was a silence, and I knew as well as if I had 
been on the other side of the screen that he was staring 
at her. Finally he spoke : 

"Chris? Chris?" he mumbled, "Chris who?" 

275 



THE INHERITANCE 

Another silence. 

"Spit it out, can't yer?" he said quite clearly, "Chris 
who?" 

I heard her breath catch, and wondered that, knowing 
what she had to expect, she should be so overwhelmed. 
For there was no violence in these last words. 

"Chr-Christopher, you know . . . Christopher, Doc- 
tor !" she got out, at last. 

Still another silence, and there came from the bed a 
low, horrible chuckle the cunning, calm chuckle you get 
in delirium tremens. 

"Christopher! Christopher's a man's name! God! 
We're all crazy together, then!" 

("Better come now, Miss Vereker," I heard Hunter.) 

" 'Christopher' ! Ah take that, Christopher, and let's 
see if you're real or like the other damned spook !" 

They held him down, of course, and we got her out. 
I thought she would faint on the landing, but she bit her 
forefinger, deliberately, and the pain saved her. 

"No, no it isn't that not what you think !" she cried 
wildly. "I expected that . . . but but, oh, Hugh, his 
eyes the way he looked at me oh, it was too dreadful 
to tell!" 

I was glad I couldn't be certain what she meant. 



CHAPTER XXI 

In Which We Manage, Somehow 

IT IS, of course, an obvious truism that one looks back 
on periods of stress and strain and finds them in 
the retrospect more unnerving and appalling than 
they appeared at the time. And yet I can't resist risking 
the truism, and marvelling a little at how we "kept up," 
as the Warwickians put it, so well, through what was 
surely an unusual measure of trouble for two young peo- 
ple for, of course, it all fell on Chrissy and me. And 
as I indulge myself in this looking back, it occurs to me 
that the crises in my life have always massed themselves 
in this way: brief, sharp batterings of Fate, cruelly re- 
peated at cruelly short intervals, and then long spaces of 
plain sailing and placid immunity. 

And though, during the next three years, we received 
much sympathy from our friends, and were generally 
looked upon as singled out by Providence for the endur- 
ance of "more than our share" of its mysterious disci- 
pline, I have never been able to convince myself that our 
lot was, after all, so abnormally bitter. It may be that 
my profession, which has, of course, put me in a position 
to see more than most people of the undercurrents of life, 
prejudices me ; but I am more and more convinced, as I 
grow older, that except in rare cases, it is only the ex- 
tremely selfish or the unnaturally isolated personality that 
escapes in the years from twenty-five to fifty much more 
shock and loss than we did. It has so happened that our 

277 



THE INHERITANCE 

sorrows have been, perhaps, rather unusually dramatic 
and therefore more difficult of concealment than those of 
our neighbours: I admit this cheerfully the fact ac- 
counts, probably, for my itch for chronicling them, at 
this late date. But that we underwent more, bulk for 
bulk, than falls to eight out of ten of those marvellous, 
fate-connected, incredible little island groups in the sea 
of humanity that we call "families," I am strongly in- 
clined to deny. 

Hamlet and Lear, my dear, young, romantic patients 
(whom your mammas beg me to cure of all sorts of ob- 
scure and modern complaints, and whom I diagnose as 
only victims to that old, old malady of youth!) Hamlet 
and Lear have found their way down to us, like Ecclesi- 
astes and Antigone, because they are, essentially, realis- 
tic as realistic, at bottom, believe me, as the characters 
of Mr. Howells, who have somewhat unfairly, it seems 
to me, confused that useful expression, in the minds of 
his countrymen, at least, to an equivalent for the daily 
journey from tub to table, and from table to bed. This 
is a very real journey, undoubtedly, but battle and mur- 
der and sudden death are real, too, and if we like Ham- 
let, it is not because he is like the hippogriff, who is a 
fairy tale, but because he resembles, in truth, our Uncle 
John Smith, who is difficult to live with ! 

And the chief objection to the style of romance which 
is supposed (and with some truth, I believe) to unfit our 
young damsels of the leisure class for the disillusionments 
of actual life, is not that they are too dramatic and highly 
spiced, but that the spice is all of one flavour and the 
drama is all in one scene. 

We, on our own crowded little stage, were far too busy 
and troubled at the time I write of to realise the sudden 
dramatic quality of it all. In an amazingly short time 

278 



WE MANAGE, SOMEHOW 

our life had adjusted itself to the new routine: three calls 
a day at the hospital ; unusual care of Gary, whose de- 
votion to his father had always been greater than any 
of the brothers', so that his weak heart gave way alarm- 
ingly under the shock and put him definitely to bed; 
greatly augmented responsibility for me, on whom most 
of the Doctor's practice that I had not fallen heir to be- 
fore, pressed heavily. It was good for me : it braced me 
out of the remorse into which my carelessness (real or 
fancied) as to the ten thousand dollars had thrown me, 
and gave me a chance to make up for it by undertaking 
practically the support of the family till events should 
prove the Doctor's accident fatal or otherwise. 

For the present he lay in a curious state of coma: 
there was no return of the fits of foul-mouthed rage that 
had so curiously obsessed him. The one that Chrissy had 
so unfortunately witnessed had died away, through mum- 
bling and snarling, into sullen, obstinate silence, passing 
thence into a dazed, apparently frightened stage, and 
lastly into positive blankness, ending in a prolonged, 
sound sleep of nearly fifty-six hours. I saw him after 
twenty-four hours of this (with all precautions for a 
speedy disappearance), and again at twelve-hour inter- 
vals, until he woke, when it was judged best for him not 
to see any one so likely to cause a recurrence of the dis- 
tressing rages. But I doubt, now, if this would have been 
the result : after that long, mysterious period of oblivion, 
Dr. Caldwell woke, extraordinarily restored as to pulse, 
temperature and every bodily function so restored as 
to completely upset our theories as to the physical damage 
he had sustained, but so utterly blank mentally as to recall 
no image but that of the new-born. Speech meant noth- 
ing to him, the doctors were forced to believe, and after 
three days of careful nourishment we were introduced by 
19 279 



THE INHERITANCE 

anxious degrees to his room, now the centre of interest 
in the hospital : first, Nana, unaccountably shrinking and 
perturbed; then Hux, next Gary, whom we had carried 
in the ambulance; then myself (I was sure, somehow, 
that the result would be what it was) ; last of all, Chrissy, 
white, and trembling slightly, but composed and deter- 
mined. It was all useless ; he stared at us vaguely, with- 
out a shadow of regard of any sort. Except that he had 
less than his usual ruddy colour and that the bandage 
about his head gave him an unfamiliar expression, he 
might have been the Doctor of a week ago, fortunately 
recovered after a nasty blow on the skull but we all re- 
alised at a glance that the head of our household for 
so many genial, busy years, was, for the present, at least, 
quite gone. 

And yet, strangely enough, after the horrid shock of 
his first state, this discovery did not affect us as it might 
have : the relief was greater than the pain. "Poor thing ! 
All's one to him, now !" Nana said with a sob, and sat 
by him at every spare moment. Chrissy never missed her 
hour in the afternoon, and Aunt Addie used to walk over 
every other morning the exercise was undoubtedly one 
of the causes of her unusually good health at that period. 
It was wonderful how Addie came up in a crisis; she 
was invaluable with Cary, who grew not unnaturally 
querulous at his enforced quiet, and she relinquished un- 
consciously all the little demands on us that made her a 
responsibility instead of a help. 

After another fortnight we moved the Doctor out into 
a large, sunny convalescent room, and promoted him to 
a reclining chair by day, and as he lay there, all bandages 
removed, shaved and fresh, in a new, blue blanket-gown 
and homelike morocco slippers, a vase of carnations on 
the stand near him and a crackling open fire on the cheer- 

280 



WE MANAGE, SOMEHOW 

ful hearth, photographs and his favourite paintings soften- 
ing the distempered walls, books and little odds and ends 
from the office on the table, and Chrissy with her mend- 
ing basket within reach of his hand, it was difficult to 
believe that he wouldn't speak at any moment, that the 
whimsical smile wouldn't light in his eyes. But his lips 
hardly moved from hour to hour, and his eyes, once fixed 
on any object, remained there indefinitely, unless startled 
away by some sudden movement or sharp sound. We 
could discover absolutely no preference for one attendant 
over another. 

Nothing had ever been heard of the tramp, though Rob 
had taken that part of the matter into his hands and em- 
ployed detectives liberally in vain, for the fellow could 
not even be traced beyond Warwick. 

It was on one of his consulting visits of this nature 
that the slight, veiled antagonism between Rob and me 
dropped all concealment and stood open to us both; 
though I am thankful to say there was no public rup- 
ture. 

"This is a bad business about the old gentleman," he 
began one afternoon, when I was enjoying a little well- 
earned Sunday leisure in the office my office, now, for it 
had altered itself insensibly, to fit my special personal an- 
gles, and the desk had drawn up into the window, the new 
system of card catalogues stood in a neat cabinet near 
the door, the little table where Chrissy wrote out the bills 
had a pot of pink geraniums and a gay little paper- 
weight, and my own growing library of nervous disor- 
ders and children's special treatment (this last a rising 
novelty) was replacing the old Encyclopaedia Britannica 
and medical reports of the seventies. Most notable 
change of all, a serious, brindled German hound of the 
sort called Great Dane they are really Deutsche dogge 

281 



THE INHERITANCE 

lay in massive slumber before the comfortable little Eng- 
lish coal-grate Bert and Chrissy had cleaned out so tri- 
umphantly it seemed so long ago! The Doctor never 
cared for dogs, and I had always kept the mongrels of 
my youthful collection at Nana's or the Verekers. 

"It might have been a worse business," I returned 
briefly, pipe in teeth, as I puttered about among some cor- 
ner shelves destined to be fitted with some small elec- 
trical apparatus. 

"Yes, yes," he muttered vaguely, "but look here, Hugh, 
it's well into February, now, and there's no change you 
admit that, don't you?" 

"Absolutely none, as far as I can see," I agreed briskly. 

"Exactly. I've spoken with J y and B n and 

that German fellow they had over, and young Hunter, 
and all of them. They don't hold out the slightest hope." 

"Except that he's alive," I suggested. 

"Oh, yes, of course if you call it life." 

"I certainly do call it life." 

He shrugged his shoulders and lit one cigarette from 
another. 

"Look here, Hugh," he began again, "don't think I 
don't appreciate what you're doing I do." 

"Suppose we leave that out of it, Rob," I said quietly. 

"No, but I can't. Hux never opens his mouth, of 
course, except about his family, and Gary is as innocent 
as a babe, and Aunt Addie and Chrissy seem to think it a 
matter of course that you should devote your strength 
and best years simply to keeping my father's practice 
for that's all it amounts to, isn't it?" 

"Yes, that's all, since you put it that way." 

"Well, I do put it that way. Now, the question is, 
how long is it going to last? You wouldn't necessarily 
select South Warwick as a place to practise, would you ?" 

282 



WE MANAGE, SOMEHOW 

"Not necessarily, perhaps." 

"I should say not. And you certainly wouldn't have a 
big house like this, an invalid like Gary and an old lady 
on your hands. My father's old patients only took you 
with the feeling that he was there to refer to " 

"At least, they would have nobody who would know 
more about them, if I left!" 

"Well and good grant that. But the hospital prac- 
tise, which you admit interests you more, has slipped over 
to Hunter, I hear. ..." 

"You've been going into this, haven't you, Rob?" 

"And what if I have ? With all this property tied up, 
and all these real estate investments, and the good will of 
the present practise the present practise, mind you 
you must see, Hugh, if you will look at it without preju- 
dice, that it's simply idiotic to go on this way, pinching 
and economising, and acting as if there were any hope." 

"I don't admit that there isn't." 

"Well, you'll have to, sooner or later, that's all. You've 
scared the rest out of making any definite statement and, 
of course, as long as you hold out ..." 

"Look here, Rob," I broke in, bluntly, "I see what 
you're driving at, and of course it's easy enough to get 
Hux on your side, with his wife in her present condition, 
and a chance at the vice-presidency for himself. If you 
wish to sacrifice Chrissy, Aunt Addie, Gary and your 
father to your own city investments, and have the legal 
right to do it go ahead. I can't stop you, and I, as you 
say, don't necessarily prefer South Warwick as a future 
career. But if you depend on my medical opinion as au- 
thority for breaking up, selling the property and the prac- 
tise and dividing your shares (and you won't have to 
wait long for Gary's, by the way), you'll never get it 
at least, not for a long time." 

283 



THE INHERITANCE 

He jumped up, began to speak, but controlled him- 
self and went out of the room abruptly to a conference 
with Huxley, I afterward learned. There is no doubt I 
put them in a hard position, a position too ungracious to 
assume, even for Rob. And if I afterwards traced to 
Mrs. Hux more than one clinging, poisoned little cob- 
web of female gossip, more than one little hint of a 
jealous adopted son who fed his love of authority (and a 
good country practise) on the lost opportunities of others 
and feathered his own nest with his brothers' clipped 
wings ah, well, I tried to be gentle with the selfish, 
purring little kitten she was only fighting for her own, 
as Nature taught her! 

It was a great responsibility I took in that ten minutes, 
in the office, and God knows it wasn't for myself I acted, 
however it turned out ! I knew the load I set my shoul- 
ders to, and Chrissy knew (Rob to the contrary), for I 
explained it to her. We knew just how crippling the 
Doctor's enormous charity practise would be and how his 
careless, unmethodical system of bill neglecting had tied 
our hands ! We knew none better what the loss of ten 
thousand dollars in cash meant to such a family as ours. 
And we knew just how much help we might expect from 
Rob and Hux, I promise you ! But there didn't seem to 
be anything else to do. I knew, as no one else knew, 
what his Warwick practise meant to him, and I couldn't, 
while he lived and breathed, put an end to it, as his. 
Aunt Addie and Gary had grown like trees with the 
house : it stood, that old, red building, for the twined and 
rooted soul of all that our Anglo-Saxon race is founded 
on the Family. And it was left for Chrissy and me, the 
two twigs of all that the old tree had sheltered so kindly, 
who had no family, to preserve it ! 

Strange fate that I, who had cursed the selfish institu- 
284 



WE MANAGE, SOMEHOW 

tion that combined to crush me in my native land; that 
Chrissy, who had been, to all intents and purposes, aban- 
doned by it from infancy that we, of all others in our 
little world, should have fought, shoulder to shoulder, to 
defend it ! 

For it was a fight. When Rob curtly announced his 
engagement to us, and we had recovered from the shock 
of his bride-to-be, a plain, distinctly unpleasant sister of 
the most unpopular boy of our day at Crane's, he never 
knew of our shifts to present the lady with a wedding 
gift worthy of the daughter of a great oil king. Why she 
should have selected Rob out of the (doubtless) many 
aspirants for her hand, we never knew. Her father 
thought highly of him, beyond a doubt, and it was mur- 
mured in that part of the press about to be known as the 
"Yellow Journals," that old Larry Larson had strongly 
recommended his eldest daughter to make an end of 
romance and settle in life. She was not, as the papers 
put it, ten years older than her ambitious and far-seeing 
young husband, but she had certainly five years the ad- 
vantage of him. All the same, it didn't take Chrissy to 
discover that she was really fond of him. I saw it in her 
eyes at the great, dull, glittering wedding breakfast, 
where all her lace couldn't make her young and pretty, 
but where all her diamonds couldn't hide that little gleam 
in her flat, pale eyes as she looked at her dignified, keen 
young lawyer. 

A curious mixture of the great world was there : "old 
families" of New York, inscrutable, but consenting; bril- 
liant Western meteors, amused at the easy capitulation of 
the social fortresses they had believed impregnable; act- 
resses newly raised to the purple ; threadbare aristocracy 
desperately refusing to fall from it; lofty British share- 
holders, staring, eating and drinking, and shedding the 

285 



THE INHERITANCE 

lustre of the new Anglo-mania upon what was universally 
conceded to be a brilliant social function. 

I think, take it all in all, we did Rob credit. Aunt 
Addie had, of course, to stay with Gary, who spent most 
of his time in bed, now, and Hux's fourth daughter was 
too recent an acquisition to allow of her mother's leaving 
home ; but Hux and I escorted Chrissy, whose dress, con- 
structed out of an embroidered crepe shawl from her 
mother's trousseau, actually got reported in the papers 
and received such stares of envy that even Hux and I 
could but notice them ! She wore her mother's carbun- 
cles, and the creamy embroidery, set off by the rich, glow- 
ing stones, made a highly favourable frame for her dark 
eyes and heavy hair. She gave Rob a little ivory statu- 
ette, whose value, as set by Tiffany, leaked out, and was 
whispered around the big roomful of presents, where 
somebody was always telling somebody else that "it was 
really a museum piece given to the young lady's father 
by the Egyptian government." Gary had inherited from 
his namesake aunt a beautiful little Chippendale secre- 
tary, of Virginia mahogany vintage, and at Chrissy's 
earnest solicitation he had meant it for her presented 
it proudly, delighted with the enthusiastic note from the 
heiress, who was, like all the elect of those days, newly 
awake to the charm of "old pieces." I devoted the pro- 
ceeds of a successful article on infantile mal-nutrition to 
a bit of rock-crystal, and we all agreed in the refurbish- 
ing of the old English silver tea service, as the eldest 
son's due. With the initials of Rob and his bride stamped 
under the monogram of thirty-six years ago, it had a 
solid, satisfactory, family air, that handsome old service, 
and though it left our sideboard lamentably bare, we none 
of us grudged it, and we knew the Doctor wouldn't have. 

Chrissy and I, fresh from contriving how best to cut 
286 



WE MANAGE, SOMEHOW 

down the house-bills, wise in the food values of neck-of- 
mutton, mush-and-molasses, and pork-and-beans, couldn't 
but laugh to each other as we dallied with mounded 
mayonnaise, galantines, out-of-season fruit and cham- 
pagne ! 

"I wish we could take some for Gary !" she confided to 

me under cover of the famous orchestra of Mr. L r, 

which discoursed Strauss waltzes behind a great smilax 
screen. 

Alas, even as we ate and drank and thought of him, 
poor Gary had ceased to need us or our fruit and wine. 
The telegram had been overlooked in the wedding bustle, 
and when Nana met us at the door that evening we had 
celebrated by going to a concert in the afternoon she 
had done the last services for the little fellow whose 
first severe illness she had nursed and soothed! It had 
been very quick and merciful, and we had only to bless 
the kindness that had sent her over to "sit with Miss 
Caldwell, the while you were away, Master Hugh" for 
in moments such as these, Nana's tongue slipped its 
leash and forgot the "Yes, doctor" she was so proud 
to say. 

It was just as his father had always prophesied: the 
slight throat affection he had always foreseen and warned 
me against had lately set in, and the exertion of sitting up 
to welcome young Fletcher, come for his Saturday wood- 
carving class, had proved too much. 

It was the same with us as with most families, I 
imagine : once death pays his visit, the edge is off and the 
details of his second coming seem curiously habitual and 
wonted. Chrissy was very quiet and collected it seemed 
to prove to me that she must have known, though we 
never discussed that phase of it and if she put on her 
simple black again as a matter of course, I could not feel 

287 



THE INHERITANCE 

that her calm, busy self-possession was the mask of a 
terrible suffering. 

In the evenings, as she mended or made, she would wipe 
her eyes silently, now and then, and once I saw her sit- 
ting in his room with her chin in her hands, but she spoke 
of him often and easily, it seemed to me, in marked dis- 
tinction to her manner as regarded Bert. Indeed, none 
of us could speak of Bert readily for two or three years ; 
it was too bitter, too poignant the might-have-been was 
too much to bear. But Gary's gentle, not-unhappy life 
slipped away under the shadow of his father's strange 
fate, and left us, so braced for what might be a long 
struggle, so used to expect his going, that it seemed more 
a fulfilment than a parting. I have seen many such, and 
marvelled afresh at the softening, binding power of 
Death, who is not always the grisly enemy that inexperi- 
ence dreads. 

It was Easter, now, and as there had been absolutely 
no change in the Doctor's condition, I decided to move 
him to his own house, to the great delight of Chrissy and 
Aunt Addie, and the first warm day after the decision 
found him in Gary's old, sunny parlour, with Miss Riggs, 
his constant attendant hitherto, established in the adjoin- 
ing bedroom. It was an expense, of course, and Chrissy 
objected strongly, wishing all the care of him, but I real- 
ised how impossible this would be, with all her other 
cares, and I understood, too, better than she could, the 
strain of continued tendance upon one so mysteriously 
afflicted. Miss Riggs worshipped him, was proud to care 
for him, believed desperately with me that the strange 
veil might lift, and assured us that he had warned her a 
year ago that she was not strong enough for general 
nursing. She had an indisputable right to rate her serv- 
ices at the moderate value she set us, and in the end we 

288 



WE MANAGE, SOMEHOW 

accepted her gratefully. So into the vacancy that Gary 
left, his father slipped, so gently that no one seemed 
missing, somehow, and when we fell into the habit of 
keeping my room always ready for John Fletcher, who 
grew able to devote more and more evenings to his now 
famous club, and spent all his Sundays with us, the old 
house was seen to have mended all its breaches and no 
vacant chambers cried out at us as we passed by their 
halls. 

Our patients filled all the empty hours and hands; 
Bert's old studio was in constant, quiet use, for the lads 
came and went by side porch and back stairs and never 
once disturbed us ; and we had this year what had been 
lacking for many children's feet and voices, the first 
since ours to echo there. 

Mrs. Hux, as I think I must have mentioned before, 
didn't get on with Aunt Addie, and had been used to say, 
very frankly, that she never quite understood Miss Vere- 
ker's position at the Caldwells. But the fourth Miss 
Caldwell was delicate and took up a great deal of time, 
the third and second Misses Caldwell were too young for 
school, and the eldest Miss Caldwell, a strapping, dicta- 
torial young person, needed more room for her expan- 
sive personality than her parents' premises, in a fashion- 
able location, it is true, but somewhat limited in area, 
could be expected to supply. So there were few days 
that we didn't see them, by two in the afternoon, a whisk- 
ing young tomboy, two shy little love birds and a pale, 
doll-like image in a varnished English "pram" with a 
worried nursemaid in the rear. Khitmutgar, the staid old 
pony, companion of an earlier tomboyhood, is led forth, 
docile and affectionate as ever, and Aunt Chrissy sum- 
moned to conduct him about the orchard paths, under the 
old white pines and round the flagged grape arbour. He 

289 



THE INHERITANCE 

always stops at the covered well house, wreathed with 
wistaria, where he had been used to nose out Hux's stores 
of apples and seed cookies, and Aunt Chrissy tells the 
endlessly fascinating history of how papa was surprised 
the day he came to look for his nut cake there! The 
tomboy stays with Aunty, the love birds go hand-in-hand 
to see if Uncle Hugh has time to tell them a story, and 
the baby is wheeled around to Aunt Addie, in her sunny 
porch corner. 

For Aunt Addie, never too fond of children in our 
time, has mellowed wonderfully to them in this genera- 
tion, and discusses infant feeding learnedly with Nana 
and the nurse, and holds the baby by the hour together. 
Old stores of shells, long since gathered on Warwick 
Beach, does Aunt Addie bring out; quaint, worn spin- 
ning tops and dog's-eared fairy tales and bows and ar- 
rows does she miraculously resurrect in Aunt Chrissy's 
very teeth, who had thought them spring-cleaned out of 
existence long ago! Catechisms does Aunt Addie hear 
and scrap books for the children's ward does she paste 
and taffy does she order to be boiled, whereat Uncle 
Hugh and Aunt Chrissy smile slyly at each other. 

And whoever may neglect Aunt Addie, there is one 
who never means to, it seems, for John Fletcher, a broad, 
manly fellow, with the beard that we all wore then, a 
straight eye and a strong grip, known well to many a 
lad in Warwick who has no friend but him, John 
Fletcher is never far from her chair or sofa (not that 
Aunt Addie inclines greatly to sofas), consults her seri- 
ously as to his growing affairs, and tells her all his plans 
"the very first," an attention she dearly loves. 

He had always had a quick, commercial cleverness, 
and from the first I had believed there was a great chance 
for his now famous Fletcher's Emulsion, the result of a 

290 



WE MANAGE, SOMEHOW 

chance discovery of happy flavouring and convenient 
blend. I helped him in patenting the harmless formula 
and rejoiced with him in the ready sale it found, though 
I was quite unprepared for the leaps and bounds it made 
under the judicious advertising which grew into a practi- 
cal profession in the 9<D's. 

That spring his firm helped him to incorporate and 
broke ground for a factory, and hardly had we ceased 
marvelling at the old house he rented in the Warwick 
slum district, papered, painted, fire-escaped and fitted 
with shower baths and billiard tables for the Bert Cald- 
well Club, when Aunt Addie told us that he had cele- 
brated his first salary as vice-president of the Fletcher's 
Emulsion Company by an Albert Caldwell Scholarship 
at Yale to be filled by Warwick boys from the club. 

"If only Robert could know!" she sobbed, and we 
comforted her through our own straining tears. 

Day in, day out, the Doctor lay in his sunny room, no 
longer lifted to the chair, even, for the effort seemed to 
me to prove indefinitely uncomfortable to him, and Miss 
Riggs, on whose judgment we relied greatly, agreed 
with me. Day in, day out, his mild, empty eyes fixed 
themselves vaguely on space, following quick movements 
only. Sudden noises distressed him, we thought, and 
the summer thunder storms affected the whole organism 
painfully, so that he required steady stimulants while 
they lasted; indeed, both Miss Riggs and I thought that 
the broken sounds he once muttered hardly more than 
groans, we had to admit during a bad August storm, 
were the sounds of approaching death, and had almost 
sent for Hux. 

After that storm I fancied his reactions a thought more 
complex, it seemed to me his eyes shifted a shade more 
frequently, and once, that autumn, he groaned in the 

291 



THE INHERITANCE 

night. But it all (if it had ever existed outside of our 
imagination) passed again, and we watched like misers, 
around an empty casket. 

Hux had long since forgiven us, and admitted to me 
privately that we had taken the only dignified course, and 
that it was a comfort to see the old name on the old shin- 
gle and feel that Aunt Addie wasn't cast adrift in some 
boarding house. And when Rob, to our surprise, brought 
Mrs. Rob to our Thanksgiving dinner, and we sat about 
the elongated table, I at the head, by general request, 
Aunt Addie at the foot, Chrissy and the infants along 
one side and Fletcher with his first proud freshman be- 
tween Mrs. Rob and her husband, I telegraphed a thrill 
of pride to Chrissy that no one at that table knew what 
planning the great turkey, the oysters and chicken pie, 
the nuts and raisins and mincemeat had cost us. Fletcher, 
who had begged to send in wine, nuts, fruit and bon- 
bons, cigars and Hux's favourite anisette, little knew 
what a relief he had been to us, for not the least of our 
triumphs was that the honest fellow never suspected the 
straits we had been in, nor dreamed that Thomas hadn't 
been paid for six months, that Chrissy had fallen back 
on Aunt Addie's stores of black dresses, that I was wear- 
ing the Doctor's shoes and that the hogshead of oil old 
Larry Larson sent us for a joke had enabled us to keep 
the grocer's bill to reasonable proportions all winter! 

The Caldwell house had always stood for ease and lux- 
ury to him, and as he never came to us without a great 
hamper of delicacies, he never saw the difference. Faith- 
ful Anne Riggs worked as chambermaid, seamstress and 
charwoman, and Nana, who would have guessed in a mo- 
ment if she had been able to see us often, thought the 
help she no longer offered quite unnecessary. On this 
Thanksgiving day she sat with the Doctor (we never left 

292 



WE MANAGE, SOMEHOW 

him a moment alone) to allow Miss Riggs her treat, and 
the nurse, her keen, regular features softened by the 
frills of one of Chrissy's old, light dresses, sat between 
Rob and John Fletcher. 

Rob's hair was gray at the temples, now, and his 
mouth drooped. He had fallen an early prey to nervous 
dyspepsia, and looked longingly at the turkey; his wife 
rarely spoke. Fletcher had hinted to me for Fletcher 
conversed now with financial magnates far beyond my ac- 
quaintance that old Larson had been badly squeezed 
by the big oil interests and needed all Rob's cleverness to 
get him through honourably even by New York stand- 
ards. And I knew that Rob had tried to borrow from 
Hux's bank ; he was badly in debt and their position re- 
quired large sums of ready money. 

So it was a curious fact that of all who sat around that 
turkey, beyond a doubt, the happiest people there were 
two orphans, one of whom had lost her lover not a year 
since and had to work far into every night to help the 
other, on whose shoulders hung her support and the sup- 
port of a rheumatic old woman and a man whose state 
was popularly supposed to be worse than death ! 

And yet so strange, so rich in surprises is this old 
world, that these two who had grown old before their 
time with work and responsibility, laughed in their 
patched shoes, owned life a battle and the dice loaded, 
but hoped to win, drew strength from every night for 
every day, and, harnessed to a tomboy and two love 
birds, romped around the table where they gave their 
honest thanks! 



CHAPTER XXII 

In Which Things Take a Turn 

WELL, well, it's all over now, that hard time, 
and I wonder, sometimes, why I can't make 
it seem harder, as I live it over in memory! 
And yet for the life of me, I can't, as I recall the pale, 
worried fellow who sat for so many hours alone at night 
in his office, rubbing his eyes to make the figures come 
straight, wondering if he had done right, after all, to take 
such heavy responsibilities, fretting a little at his class- 
mates' brilliant, unhampered successes (for my interests 
always lay in problem and research rather than practise), 
I can't, I say, feel half as much pity for his straits as 
pleasure in the little whiffs that came to him from time 
to time, the little relaxations, the little unexpected wind- 
falls that mean so much to the unexpecting worker ! 

Those delightful days when, during the next spring, 
the old bills began for some reason to produce their long- 
waited cheques ! The joy of the dividends from Fletch- 
er's Emulsion, in which we had all, Aunt Addie included, 
been practically forced to take a few friendly shares! 
I really don't remember a jollier day, in its unpretending 
way, than that April morning when Chrissy and I started 
for New York with two hundred dollars that we "simply 
had to spend for clothes." With new hat, shoes and 
gloves and a trim tan overcoat, secure in the future fit of 
the black frock coat young doctors thought necessary 
then, I sallied forth with Chrissy, demure in a delicious 

294 



THINGS TAKE A TURN 

gray ulster and the most refreshing garnet-breasted 
toque (all the ladies spoke of toques, then, I think, and 
they took to bonnets earlier in life) and together we se- 
lected a garnet silk and a pleasant-coloured soft wool 
material like the top of a lightly browned biscuit. These 
colours were impressed on my mind because the clerk in 
each case remarked with a smile: "This will be ex- 
tremely becoming to your wife's complexion, doctor," as 
I gave the address. 

It seems rather a sad tribute, now, to our staid, prac- 
tical, householding temperaments and the brotherly-sis- 
terly feelings of two young people who ought to have 
blushed and started nervously, that we didn't the least 
bit do either ! 

"It's funny how they all seem to think we're married," 
Chrissy remarked absently ; "I think I'll get another pair 
of gray gloves, Hugh, they are such a bargain, and do 
you think we can manage that lace collar for Aunt Addie, 
your coat was so reasonable ?" 

"I don't see why not," I said, "and I've been thinking, 
Chris, that since the Doctor's underclothes fit me so well, 
and if Rob really does give up his extra horse and sends 
on the harness and lap robes, I'll tell the tailor to make 
an extra pair of light trousers while he's about it, and 
maybe I'll go to that conference at Baltimore !" 

Small wonder that a third interested attendant, whom 
I had insisted that Chrissy should patronise to the extent 
of a broad-brimmed summer hat with a Roman scarf 
about it, like Mrs. Hux's new one, should suggest, after 
hearing one of our conferences over office towels (which 
have such a terrible way of wearing out!) : 

"Any children's things for spring, madam? We have 
some sweet Easter hats in the children's department!" 

I swear the girl didn't even colour ! 
20 295 



THE INHERITANCE 

"I'm only an aunt, thank you," she said, with her pleas- 
ant, warm smile. 

A vague sense of wrong crept over me. 

"But you oughtn't to be, Chris," I began, as we moved 
away, "you ought to have babies of your own, do you 
know it ? And here you are, slaving away for us all like 
an old, settled . . ." 

"Why, I am settled, you goose!" she laughed, "and 
have been for years ! I was born 'Aunt Chrissy/ I think, 
Hugh, I enjoy it so much ! You know perfectly well I 
shan't marry don't you know, some girls don't? And 
what would you do, Dr. Caldwell, if I did?" 

What, indeed! And it was quite true that she was 
"settled" : she looked more than her twenty-six years, a 
little though not, as I began to notice, then, so much 
in advance of her real age as she had at sixteen or at 
twenty. Like many women of the mature, dark type, 
Chrissy was wearing extremely well, and it occurred to 
me that she was distinctly of Pippy Crane's order, who, 
at thirty-six, had not altered for five years, while the 
lovely Dossy was faded and nervous, and Lulu, I had 
heard, already "touched up" her hair! 

It was Easter Saturday, and I was looking forward 
to a rather sad Sunday with Aunt Addie, for it would be 
poor Gary's anniversary and she never forgot those dates. 
But that Sunday was destined to prove another sort of 
day altogether. 

At three in the morning Nana called me by telephone 
to what proved when I got there to have been the death- 
bed of old Beulah, the Bermuda negress who had cooked 
and cared for Professor Vereker so many years. After 
his death she had roamed and drifted uneasily, between 
Warwick and New York, parted from Diana, who had 
long since left them, possessed to the end by her strange 

296 



THINGS TAKE A TURN 

dislike of Chrissy, whose entrance into the world she had 
so long resented. Her culinary talents supported her 
easily and we had always, among us, kept an eye on her, 
as the phrase goes, and Nana herself had been instru- 
mental in getting her at the last into the public ward of 
the hospital. 

"She 'minds me o' the old times, doctor, and I can't 
feel it's altogether best to forget," said the loyal soul. 

Still, I couldn't quite see why I should be summoned 
at three o'clock that Easter morning to hear that the old 
woman's troubles were over, and I'm afraid I spoke rather 
curtly. 

"Any special reason, Mrs. False . . . ?" 

"Yes, Master Hugh," she said gravely, "there is, and 
I couldn't feel right not to call you immediate. That 
tramp, the one that stole all that money from the poor 
Doctor " 

"Yes, yes! Go on, what?" I cried, for Nana always 
wiped her eyes when she mentioned the Doctor. 

"Of course the poor creature was wandering like, and 
she always spoke outlandish, as we all know, but I could 
always make out what she wanted, you know, and I'm 
sure she meant that it was him that came to the Profes- 
sor's house while she was there, and left the money." 

"While she was there? Why, Nana, the house has 
been closed for years ! She was rambling !" 

"Didn't you know she always stopped there, sir? In 
through the wood shed she'd get and 'twas winked at 
by the agent, for she often made her a fire in the kitchen, 
winters. Miss Chrissy always knew it. She took her 
some soup there, once, and the queer old thing threw it 
out. She said she was there the day o' the big storm, and 
a big, blackish man came in, and she was afraid, but 
when she saw it was the Doctor, she let him stay." 

297 



THE INHERITANCE 

"The Doctor! Why, she was crazy, then! But the 
money, Nana, the money!" 

"Yes, sir, I'm coming to it. She said the big man 
had pains in his head, but he knew her name, and called 
her Beulah, and then he had a fit and fell on the floor, 
she said, but before that he took out a great roll of money, 
all yellow, and hid it under the shavings in the wood pile 
and put a penny on top " 

"A penny?" 

"Yes, sir, but that's her crazy negro way of lying, I 
don't doubt " 

"Well, well, is it there? Did she leave it?" 

"So she said. And that she was afraid to tell, for 
fear of the police, for they might say she killed him." 

"Did he die there ?" 

"It seems so, doctor. I couldn't rightly make out that 
part, for she kept saying that sometimes he was the Doc- 
tor and then he would be the Devil, again. But he had 
a fever and another fit and then he died. And she said 
she'd never been there since, for fear of hauntings and 
such like. You see, she was never herself, since the 
Professor died, doctor." 

"I'll call Mr. Hux directly," I said excitedly, for, like 
Nana, I felt I couldn't wait. It seemed too good to be 
true and yet . . . ! 

Before long he had joined me and before much longer 
we were pushing into the dark, cobwebbed shed, the lan- 
tern from the Stanhope faint against the pale dawn. Hux 
was inclined to pooh-pooh the whole thing, but there was 
just enough of the barely possible about it to give us a 
great start and a thrill when we saw an ugly, broken 
shoe below a length of soiled trouser, projecting 
from the brown, broken bits of the great pile of kindling 
wood. 

298 



THINGS TAKE A TURN 

"Hugh, old fellow, she was right!" he muttered, and 
grasped my arm nervously. 

I did not, naturally, share his repugnance to the in- 
spection of the unpleasant matter before us at least, not 
to the degree he manifested and I had soon made all 
the proof possible to make that the murderous fellow of 
a year and a half ago or what there was left of him 
lay indeed in the old Vereker wood-house. I can shut 
my eyes now and see the queer shadows from my lantern 
play upon the dusty, stained walls, the old barrels, the 
rotten garden hose, the toothless, wooden rake, the wa- 
tering pot without a spout, that I reviewed hastily in my 
search for a pile of shavings. Suddenly, there they were 
they leaped into the circle of light in a far corner, a 
mound as high as my waist, and as I pushed tentatively 
about in the base of it, cynical, suddenly, as to any result, 
my hand closed on a hard, resisting object, and I drew 
out, breathing quick, a roll of fresh, yellow banknotes, 
while a hard coin dropped through my fingers and tin- 
kled on the trodden, earthen floor. I had no need to 
study it it was it must be his old Roman coin ! 

"So that was the penny !" I muttered ; "old Beulah was 
right! Why why should he take it and leave the 
watch ?" 

"It's mighty good he did don't you see it identifies 
it as ours ?" Hux answered soberly ; "the two go together 
nobody else had a coin like father's." 

But my head was whirling. Old thoughts, old doubts, 
old fears surged back over me, and the months since the 
accident were wiped out like writings on a child's slate. 
I stood staring at the coin, while things unspeakable 
raced through my brain. Who had laid that coin proof 
of his identity on that pile of yellow bills: who? Whose 
mind, planning, had selected money and medal and 

299 



THE INHERITANCE 

left the watch? Whose soul dictated to those hairy 
hands that had grasped Black Molly's bridle? Whose ? 

Oh, why had I not listened to Beulah with my own 
ears? Why had I not been able to ask 

"Hadn't we better get off?" Hux asked softly; "there's 
a lot to be done and Sunday's a hard day. . . ." 

"Yes, yes," I assented, "yes, I suppose so. Better tel- 
ephone Rob. I'll send the coroner and the police up." 

It was Easter morning when we got home. 



CHAPTER XXIII 

In Which You May or May Not Believe 

1HAVE rarely been so touched as I was on that 
windy, wet afternoon a fortnight later, when Hux, 
twisting the stem of his tiny chasse of apricot 
brandy in his fingers (after as good a dinner as he could 
have got at home, Chrissy and Aunt Addie congratulated 
each other) told me that Rob had attended to all the legal 
details, and that in view of the well-known hopeless con- 
dition of his father and the entire community of interest 
and opinion between the only heirs, he was in a position 
to offer me one-third of the ten thousand dollars, out- 
right. 

"And I think, Hugh," he added, a little nervously, it 
seemed to me, "that it would be only the decent thing for 
us all to put up five hundred apiece, say, as a share for 
Chrissy. She's the only sister we ever had, and if father 
could see what she's done all this while . . . you see, his 
not making a will would leave her . . ." 

I saw, perfectly. I saw, too, that though Hux had in 
a way the whiphand of Rob at present, in the event of the 
Doctor's dying, there would be nothing for Chrissy, and 
Rob was hardly in a financial condition to recognise very 
delicate obligations. 

"I say we make it a thousand each," I suggested, and 
he not only agreed but actually bullied Rob into doing 
the same. I had never before felt on such an equality of 
sonship with the boys, and it was very sweet to me, I can 
tell you. 

301 



THE INHERITANCE 

I had the less objection to taking my share that I 
had more than earned it, of course, but there was an- 
other reason, one that I kept to myself all through the 
quiet summer and well into the autumn. 

There was no change in the Doctor and no one believed 
that there would be. That we should watch and tend 
him until, sooner or later, the feeble spark should vanish 
out of the flesh that barely held it, breathing, was all that 
any one of the various eminent men that his name easily 
brought to me could promise. His enormous vitality 
alone, the perfect functioning of an unusually healthy 
body, had preserved that body so long, and a year, a 
month nay, a day more of what we were forced to call 
life, since it was not death what difference did it make ? 

Indeed, I am not sure that my own feelings, now, were 
not more scientific than personal. Rob and Hux, I knew, 
regarded their father as dead, and when I laid before 
them, on a wintry day nearly two years after the acci- 
dent, the dangerous experiment I wanted their permission 
to make, I, for one, could hardly blame Rob if I caught 
in his voice that its danger was not entirely a drawback 
in his eyes. 

It was Fletcher who really decided me. We had been 
discussing, after a July thunderstorm which had weak- 
ened our patient's pulse almost fatally (though Miss 
Riggs had been sure that his nostrils had twitched and 
his lips moved) the probable effects of a continuous elec- 
tric current; and though I explained to him that this 
treatment had been employed at the very first, in the hos- 
pital, and more than once, later, but always with such 
terrifying results that it had been almost immediately 
checked, he remained obstinately unconvinced. 

"Perhaps it wasn't strong enough," he said. 

I stared at him. 

302 



YOU MAY OR MAY NOT BELIEVE 

"My own idea, precisely," I said at last; "but . . . 
the risk, Fletcher, the risk !" 

"Anything's better than this, Caldwell," he answered 
quietly, "and I want to tell you that Miss Riggs is break- 
ing down. She's very nervous about him and she's lost 
weight this year. You'll never supply her place if she 
has to leave." 

I saw it was so, after a moment of anxious thought; 
and when he showed me a clipping from an electrical 
journal with a rather technical explanation of the anoma- 
lous effects of heavy voltage and a query as to the curious 
questions it opened in regard to the matter of electrocu- 
tion, I found that these two tiny straws suddenly showed 
me the direction of my mind and explained my growing 
interest in larger batteries and more complicated appa- 
ratus than Warwick could offer. 

Rob and Hux never knew what a share of my portion 
of the famous ten thousand went into those great glass 
cases, but Chrissy guessed, and nearly quarrelled with 
me because I would not let her bear a share in their 
purchase. 

It was all very quietly arranged: Aunt Addie acqui- 
esced with an unexpected calmness, and put her hand on 
his forehead very quietly as she took her turn at what 
might be a last look. His eyes were nearly always closed 
now, and this was generally regarded as a bad symptom. 
Rob and Hux stood together by the bed, looked a moment, 
then went out together, arms across each other's shoul- 
ders, in their old school-boy way. Chrissy bent a mo- 
ment and kissed the delicately tinted cheek bone above the 
short gray beard. Then she took my hand in both hers. 

"Whatever happens, Hugh, you've done your very, 
very best, from the beginning," she said, low, but quite 
clearly. 

303 



THE INHERITANCE 

I wrung her hands, but couldn't speak. I had no hope, 
just then, for all my excitement was over, but it seemed 
that I must go on. Something had driven me forward 
ever since I had broached the matter timidly to Nana, 
and she, to my surprise, had warmly advised it. 

"If there's but a chance, as you say, Master Hugh, 
'tis but right for all that it should be tried," she said 
calmly; "I've been thinking these three months 'twould 
be better settled one way or another. Those New York 
doctors have kept you from freeing your mind this long 
time: that I know." 

I had only Hunter and two others of the hospital staff 
with me, and one of my medical classmates who had 
agreed with me from the beginning. He was to give me 
such simple help as I should need, and Miss Riggs and 
Nana were ready with stimulants. The broad, straight, 
stairs had made it an easy matter to move him on a cot 
to the office, and once there all personality left him, so 
far as I was concerned (the common course with me), 
and he became the patient merely I, the interested but 
unmoved practitioner. I fitted the padded bulb to his 
head, stated in a few brief sentences to my noncommittal 
colleagues what results might be hoped for, and nodded 
to Hunter, who cranked the wheel of the big static bat- 
tery, as placidly as though he were about to soothe a 
lady's neuralgia. 

I thought in a lightning flash of Chrissy's brave words : 
"If he dies why, then, we must just think he died two 
years ago !" and with my finger at his pulse administered 
my first shock. 

His eyelids flew apart, and the colour left his face. I 
motioned for the second. 

The muscles about his mouth twitched and he 
groaned: I felt a thrill of delight, but realised imme- 

304 



YOU MAY OR MAY NOT BELIEVE 

diately that I got no pulse. Miss Riggs was at him in 
a second, and when the stimulant was fairly down I sent 
my third shock crashing along those mysterious, sleeping 
nerves and even while my classmate murmured, "Easy, 
easy, Caldwell ! Look out, there !" I drenched the inani- 
mate body lying before me with more of that terrible, 
tremendous current than I had ever handled in my life 
before. The air reeked with released ozone and blue, 
jagged sparks flew from the wheel and the chains of the 
apparatus. The body on the long table quivered and 
twisted, the eyeballs rolled, the lips parted, and as I flung 
off the current, that deep, strangling, welling gasp that 
even the nurses call the "going soul" rattled through the 
tense room. 

"Gone, hasn't he?" Hunter whispered, and I noticed 
how the hair still stood on end on his blond head under 
the electric influence. 

Miss Riggs's hand was on his heart, but I knew by 
her face that there was no movement under that waiting 
hand. Her hair, too, waved curiously above the neat 
uniform. 

I saw Nana with a tiny glass, but I shrugged my 
shoulders dully, as she tried to part the set teeth. 

"It was madness madness!" I thought, "and they all 
knew it!" 

How the ozone reeked! Why would no one open a 
window ? What was Nana saying ? 

"Shall I give any more, sir? There was nearly an 
ounce." 

"For God's sake it's down!" said a voice, and we 
rushed to the table it seemed we were far away from it. 

"Another ounce if he'll take it," I said, and my voice 
seemed to come from a distance. 

We waited, seventeen seconds by Hunter's watch, and 

305 



THE INHERITANCE 

then his eyelids quivered, raised, and fixed themselves, 
and his eyes looked dully into mine. 

"Molly !" he said hoarsely, but quite distinctly, "where's 
Molly? What is it, Hugh?" 

I knew in an instant what he meant, and said, calmly, 
Miss Riggs told me later, and quite naturally : 

"She's all right, Doctor she ran away home. We had 
an accident. Will you drink a little more of this?" 

He drank easily and Nana opened a window. 

"My head hurts terribly, Hugh," he said feebly, "is 
that Hunter? Better send for a wagon I can't walk. 
I must have been struck, I think. Take a look at my 
head, will you, boys ?" 

He was coming on too fast to deceive, so I spoke 
quickly : 

"You're in the office, Doctor ; we brought you here un- 
conscious, you see. After a bit we'll take you up to 
to Chrissy's room," I added hastily, for there was no 
other room, now, that wouldn't lead to questions. 

He nodded weakly and sank back, and while he rested, 
breathing slowly, they shook my hand and whispered con- 
gratulations too soon, perhaps, I feared. Indeed it was 
because of this that I decided to let them all come down, 
for who should say that this was not the end ? They had 
a right, it seemed to me, to see him once more, as he had 
been. So Hux and Rob, Aunt Addie and Chrissy, all 
composed and quiet to a degree, spoke a moment to the 
man who had been absent from them for two years and 
supposed that he had left them or three of them, at least 
that very day! 

"Well, well, I gave you a scare, eh, Rob?" he whis- 
pered, "how quickly they got you ! Don't alarm Gary 
the boy's heart won't stand it." 

I think we all gave way a little, then. 
306 



YOU MAY OR MAY NOT BELIEVE 

Though we watched all night, there was only steady 
improvement to record, and after forty-eight hours more 
it seemed to me unwise to delay his complete enlighten- 
ment till his keen wits should force the situation from 
somebody's carelessness. Indeed, I had no special fear 
of the shock : his was never an emotional or excitable na- 
ture. I prophesied that interest, sheer, impersonal in- 
terest, would turn out to be his keenest sensation, and 
the event proved me right. 

And though I touched but lightly on it, and though 
he had, of course, no slightest recollection of anything 
after the quick, horrified sight of that vicious, frightened 
tramp's face so close to his that, and then the crashing 
blow I could see that the story of the bills and the Ro- 
man coin and the dying mutterings of the old negress 
struck him most forcibly. He would cross-examine Nana 
by the hour, and he soon forced out of me my unwilling 
recollections of his hospital ravings. 

But all this was when he had got downstairs again, 
which we had to allow in a fortnight, as he seemed quite 
able to venture it, and long after the town had learned 
with amazement that the impossible had happened once 
more, and that "the old Doctor" was back again. 

It has no idea of its real claims to fame, has South 
Warwick. Tell any inhabitant of that burgh to-day that 
on one of its outlying country roads, not six miles from 
the new blue-stone Court House (a trolley goes by the 
spot now) there took place, a quarter century ago, one of 
the most crashing impossibilities science has ever had to 
incorporate into her reluctantly expanding system, an 
event so incredible that without the most absolute series 
of proofs the telling of it alone would class the teller 
among the hopeless gulls of a gullible generation, and 

307 



THE INHERITANCE 

that inhabitant will stare at you and ask what you can 
possibly mean. Was it that transfusion of blood old Doc- 
tor Caldwell accomplished so cleverly, back in eighty- 
something? That was written up in the newspapers. 
Or was it that discovery that had something to do with 
insanity and eye-strain anyway, he took a woman out 
of the asylum and some German oculist came over to 
Warwick just to see her, and she wasn't insane after all. 
They kept her in a dark room, and after that she gave 
ten thousand dollars to the Warwick hospital, and some- 
body said it was all described in a German scientific jour- 
nal, and the old Doctor got a medal from some society 
or other. 

Yes, indeed, he was really famous : in a way. He was 
asked to go to New York more than once. But he never 
kept any account of his fees, you know it was perfectly 
ridiculous. You simply couldn't get him to send in a 
bill, rich or poor. You would suppose he'd have a sec- 
retary or an assistant for that part of it, since he in- 
sisted he was no accountant and had better uses for his 
time, but as soon as he got one, he set him to working 
just as hard at the office patients, and nothing more got 
done. It was a pity his wife died not that she was in- 
teresting at all or had much influence over the boys, but 
still, she might have attended to the bills a great many 
doctors' wives do. 

Really, until that English girl what was her name, 
now? oh, Vereker! until she took charge, things got 
pretty careless in the house: there must have been a 
great deal of waste. Miss Caldwell would insist on so 
many servants ridiculous, in this country. Two maids 
and the driver would have been plenty. And having the 
young doctor there, too, with all those boys of his own ! 
But he was a generous old fellow, to be sure, and his 

308 



YOU MAY OR MAY NOT BELIEVE 

own worst enemy as far as getting on in the world went. 
But that dreadful accident showed how many friends he'd 
made they had to have a nurse at the telephone night 
and day, at first. A frightful thing. After all the insane 
people he'd treated (since that eye-strain business, you 
know; people came from all over) to be that way him- 
self! Perfectly raving mad. Concussion of the brain, 
and lightning had something to do with it. One of those 
balls of fire that you hear about. 

Thus the inhabitant, and even to hint at what (I be- 
lieve) happened in South Warwick in '83, would cause 
him to look at you pityingly and leave you, convinced 
that you yourself were headed for the asylum, with no 
hope of eye-strain to release you from it. 

Well, well, perhaps so! The proof of what he and 
I believe to have occurred on that country road is dead 
and buried now if it ever had any proofs. And though 
I could point to many a religion that many a man has 
died for, which has been based on less proof than I feel 
we have for what I have only dared to hint in these col- 
lected memories, I will press it on you no further, but 
leave you to make what you can of it and to rejoice with 
us as Chrissy sits at his feet in the pleasant winter fire- 
light, and reads, with only now and then a happy break 
in her accustomed grave, full voice, from the immortal 
history of David Copperfield ! 



CHAPTER XXIV 

In Which We Take Our Ease 

THERE was scarcely a day in the first of the bright, 
cold, early winter that followed, that Chrissy 
and I hadn't to take counsel together privately 
in the office. This was for many reasons, but chiefly, 
of course, in the matter of the Doctor. Though his 
weakness and awkwardness in walking kept him, as yet, 
in his room, he had progressed so far in a few weeks as 
to dispense finally with Miss Riggs and to have already 
filled her room with the books we brought up to him. 
Now he was impatient to get down to the office again, 
and to see the old friends who came every day in some 
other than the purely friendly relation which was all I 
had yet allowed. And just here lay the difficulty. 

"You see, Chris," I explained, somewhat diffidently, 
for I dreaded what I knew would follow, "you see, it's 
going to be awfully hard to break it to him but I'm 
afraid some quite a few . . . that is, lots of them are 
going to fight shy of the Doctor, and it puts me in a 
hard " 

"You mean, Hugh, they won't trust him ? They don't 
believe " 

"That's just it. You see, every one knew, when he 
first went to the hospital, how he " 

"I know, I know," she interrupted hastily; "but he's 
exactly the same as he ever was, Hugh, they must see it !" 

"People are very suspicious," I said slowly, "and it's 
310 



WE TAKE OUR EASE! 

all been so so theatrical, somehow. Then, another 
thing, Chris : my succeeding so well with it all . . ." 

"Oh, I know, and I'm so glad ! You deserve every bit 
of it, Hugh dear!" 

By which cryptic interchange the astute reader will, of 
course, have divined that the last two years have made 
me what assuredly I never dreamed of that day, ten years 
ago, when I saw in a flash of intuition (and in this very 
room, too !) that my duty was to learn the Doctor's trade. 
I only meant, honestly, to help and please him and here 
I was, one of the leading physicians in a wealthy little 
suburb, preferred, as a matter of cold fact in many cases, 
to the man who had made me what I was ! 

Well, well, it's life, all this, just life, and there's no 
blinking it, even if the blinking looks prettier-behaved. 

So we walked up and down in front of the grate, 
Chrissy and I, and puzzled mightily over it all. How to 
tell the Doctor that young Mrs. Bragg actually preferred 
me to assist her through the forthcoming interesting fam- 
ily event? Me, and not him, who had attended her into 
the world? Me, thirty-two and unmarried? That old 
Miss Peyton wanted me to apply the electricity to her 
spine ? That Carol Lee thought that since I'd diagnosed 
his twins' double-mastoid so well, I'd better attend to 
the operation ? 

"Mrs. Levi put Marguerite Bragg up to it," said 
Chrissy crossly. "She thinks you're a perfect wonder. I 
think it's very silly of Marguerite. If / were going to 
have a baby, I know I'd rather have the doctor who had 
me!" 

"I know," I said humbly, "you would think so !" 

"It's positively ungrateful !" she went on, "just tell 
Marguerite so, why don't you ?" 

"My dear girl, how can I ?" 

21 311 



' THE INHERITANCE 

I always loved to see Chris ruffled and standing up 
for her own. She coloured and her eyes snapped and her 
brows drew together like the little girl's that used to 
play with the big hound, so long ago. 

But it all cleared away, this particular little tempest 
in our family teapot, and in the neatest and most unex- 
pected way ; for Aunt Addie burst in upon us with a tale 
so disjointed and amazing that we rushed up to the Doc- 
tor's room, to find the hero and heroine of it sitting on 
each side of his sofa in a triple alliance of delight and 
amusement. 

"Well, Hugh, what do you think of it?" he asked 
eagerly; "I know you don't want me to get to work, 
but am I good for a trip around the world eh?" 

"Why, Fletcher ! The very thing. And not a bit too 
quick for you, either !" I cried delightedly. 

For Fletcher had got perilously near the point of over- 
strain, and I had warned him more than once of late. 

"Yes," he admitted, "I believe you're right, Hugh. 
I chartered the Larson yacht yesterday. And the Doc- 
tor here is just about persuaded to go with us it's a 
year's trip, and we'll all come back made over and ready 
for work." 

"But but you don't need Miss Riggs," I said bluntly ; 
"what nonsense, Fletcher ! You're not at any such point 
as that!" 

"Why, the Doctor dresses himself entirely, now didn't 
you know it, Anne ?" says Chrissy, ruffling. 

"Hugh ! Hugh ! Are you as blind as a bat ?" from Aunt 
Addie reproachfully. "I do believe, Chrissy, you are as 
bad as he is you always were the dullest girl !" 

We stare stupidly. 

"But he doesn't need " I begin again. 

"There's where you're wrong, Caldwell I need a nurse 
312 



WE TAKE OUR EASE 

badly this nurse," says Fletcher serenely, and Anne 
Riggs blushes bravely behind the Doctor's shoulder. 

I gasp and Chrissy flies at her. 

"Why, Anne! The idea! How lovely!" she cries, 
and they entwine in the typical and apparently necessary 
manner, while Aunt Addie expostulates to the air and I 
wring Fletcher's hand. 

"You know, Chrissy is almost unnatural !" Thus Aunt 
Addie plaintively, to the air. 

"Really, she's not like a girl at all ! I don't mind Hugh 
so much, because he's a man and never was romantic, 
anyway, and of course it's useless to expect, now. But 
Chrissy never seems to think of those sort of things, at 
all, and it's not as if she were a really plain girl, either, 
so that sometimes I really wonder. . . ." 

Well, there is this much to be said for poor Aunt 
Addie : pleased as Chrissy and I were at the wedding, for 
they were a fine couple and deserved each other "down 
to the ground," as we agreed, I'm not sure that we didn't 
regard the whole thing as a providential arrangement for 
getting the Doctor off for that wonderful, restorative 
year. We were best man and bridesmaid at the quiet 
little party at St. Matthews' and Mr. Applegate, ruddy as 
a winter apple, cheered us all in the vestry with his in- 
imitable account of Chrissy's christening. How we 
laughed and how it all came back to me ! It was the last 
wedding in the old church, for the new one was ready 
for consecration, and we all knew whose money was to 
support this one, where Bert had played the old organ. 
The architects were already at work over the addition 
with the inevitable shower baths and billiard tables that 
Fletcher insisted upon. Now there was a big phono- 
graph added, with dance tunes and well-known choruses, 
and a stereopticon for round-the-world views, which his 

313 



THE INHERITANCE 

faithful kodak sent regularly; the boys enlarged and 
exhibited them proudly to crowded audiences. 

This, of course, we didn't foresee, that snowy morning 
in December, when Anne Fletcher, in her trim gray trav- 
elling dress (which carried, somehow, a hint of the uni- 
form), shook hands all 'round, and left us, on her hus- 
band's happy arm, for the little honeymoon trip to Vir- 
ginia that was to precede the long tour. 

Chrissy wore the top-of-a-biscuit coloured dress, made 
up for the occasion, with a beaver hat to match, with 
brown silk roses on it. Around her neck, above the fluffy 
lace that filled in the shield-shaped opening Aunt Addie 
had insisted on the dressmaker's cutting out, twinkled 
a beautiful topaz necklace set in antique silver, the bride- 
groom's gift. It caught and repeated the notes of light 
in her eyes, and I realised that they were flecked with 
light brown, champagne tinted. I mentioned this to Aunt 
Addie, with the remark that I had not noticed it before. 

"Humph!" sniffed Aunt Addie, wiping her eyes (for, 
like all women, she cried at weddings), "there's a lot 
about Chrissy you haven't noticed, Hugh!" 

Whereas I smiled, as people have always smiled at 
their aunts and always will, doubtless, until they arrive 
at the stage where there is no giving in marriage, and 
therefore, presumably, no resultant aunts. 

The Doctor was as excited as a boy, for except for 
a tour in Switzerland before the war, he had never been 
abroad. I wondered, on one occasion, as he gave me a 
shrewd look and said lightly: 

"Well, a year certainly ought to settle these addled old 
brains of mine, eh, Master Hughie?" I wondered, I say, 
if he suspected, perhaps, more than we thought? War- 
wick was delighted at his treat, and showers of soap- 
cases, steamer rugs, spirit lamps and diaries descended 



WE TAKE OUR EASE 

upon us, to Aunt Addie's pride and joy. Aunt Addie 
was fairly renewing her youth, in these days. Although 
the two years of the Doctor's helplessness had been very 
quiet ones for us, we had never quite lost the social 
relations that had begun to be ours since Chrissy made 
a home for us mysterious fact, that, for certainly no 
one could have depended for social support on Chrissy! 
And wait a bit, on thinking back, I seemed to see that 
our connection, infrequent, but admitted, with the "im- 
portant people" of Warwick really antedated the house 
furnishing (when we began to have people in to tea) 
and harked back to our college days and the beach parties. 
But all those friends we made at Crane's and who got 
us into Crane's ? Why, I did ! Actually, if I hadn't gone 
to Crane's, I doubt if Rob would ever have married Alice 
Larson ! 

It was just after we went down to the Warwick dock 
to see them off that Alice died a quiet, unassuming sort 
of death that included, fortunately, the little too-soon- 
born creature that was responsible for it. Chrissy and 
Hux and I went to the funeral, as we had gone to the 
wedding, three years before, and then we went up to 
Woodlawn, in a blinding snowstorm, and laid her beside 
her father there, and Rob went off in his black tie, to live 
at his club, and that colourless little chapter was closed. 
But he came to us for Sundays, and really seemed to 
enjoy it, and got into the way of dropping in of evenings 
and stopping the night so often that when Aunt Addie 
said one day : 

"Do you know, I believe Rob would like to live here, 
Hugh and Chrissy, and go into town every day and 
Nana thinks so, too !" we suddenly perceived that she was 
right. We cleared the Doctor's books out of Miss Riggs' 
room (we begged her pardon Mrs. Fletcher's!) and he 

315 



THE INHERITANCE 

sent for those of his own that he used the most and set- 
tled down into his father's bedroom, more contented with 
the old house than he had ever been, I believe. For Rob 
had always been the most ambitious and the least satis- 
fied with our shabby carpets and capless Bridgets and 
Norahs. 

That was all changed, now : the Celtic wave had sub- 
sided, and Hilda and Senta, stolid and immaculate, moved 
blue-and-white of mornings, black-and-frilled of after- 
noons, over our polished floors. 

Yes, the cheese-paring days were over, now, and there 
was no more consulting necessary as to desserts for Hux 
or some one to polish Rob's shoes. When I started out 
on some hurried evening call, I could meet Rob and 
Chrissy in the warm, light hall, ready for one of the 
quiet, family dinners Warwick was only too ready to 
urge on them ; Rob tall and distinguished, if rather gray 
and worn for his age, in his evening Inverness, Chrissy 
vivid in the white, slightly decollete dresses he liked so 
much to see her in. He had given her some handsome 
laces that had belonged to Alice, and her full, creamy 
neck, with the tiniest hint of white shoulder showing 
under the topaz necklace, justified his taste. He kept a 
pair of chestnuts in the stable and drove her himself in 
a high English covert-cart, with Thomas, erect and 
amused, in the rumble. 

Often as we stepped out together onto the well-lighted 
porch (enclosed in glass, now, for the winter) I would 
catch Aunt Addie's satisfied nod at Hilda's soft announce- 
ment: 

"Petersen iss ready for you, Doctor, and Thomas iss 
just behind for Miss Chrissy and Mr. Caldwell. Your 
coat, Doctor." 

And I get into my great-coat, musquash-lined, and 
316 



WE TAKE OUR EASE 

Rob helps Chrissy into her warm, long sealskin 
(Fletcher fitted us all out at Christmas, from Aunt Addie 
down !), and we roll out over the hard, moonlighted road, 
with much clinking and stamping for the Caldwells 
will have that kind of horses, as anybody in South War- 
wick will tell you. 

And if it is a little startling to find that Chrissy is 
dining or lunching out (no question now of calming out- 
raged Hibernians with hot-supper subterfuges!) at least 
twice a week, and that your evening clothes are laid on 
the bed, doctor, as Mr. Caldwell has four extra to-night 
from the city, if these changes are not entirely delight- 
ful to a hardworking physician, why, think of what a 
pleasure it must be to Chris! The poor girl never has 
had a chance since she left school, you know. If her girl- 
hood's pleasures are a little late in coming, would you 
grudge her a taste, now that the strain is off and that 
there is someone with the sense to flatter her into low- 
necked dresses ? For shame ! 

So we tell ourselves, Aunt Addie and I, over many an 
evening of tete-ti-tete backgammon, while Chrissy is lis- 
tening to the new concerts that come up from New York, 
now, to the new Warwick Casino, chaperoned by Mrs. 
Levi Bragg, escorted by Mr. Caldwell (''Larson's son-in- 
law, you know, my dear. His father is on a yachting 
tour with that young Fletcher that did so well."). 

It ought to have been the happiest and most success- 
ful year of my life, for I was called twice to New York 
to assist in most important operations and refused a most 
flattering hospital offer. All I can say is it wasn't. Be- 
fore he left, the Doctor had sold most of his outlying 
real estate (at prices which justified every cent of the 
money he had tied up twenty years ago, by the way) , and 
had made over to me, directly, such a proportion of it as 

317 



THE INHERITANCE 

I couldn't have accepted without the hearty insistence of 
both the boys. That they did so insist was one of the 
great prides of my life. The terms of our future part- 
nership, too, were more than I could have asked, and that 
I should inherit the whole practise went without saying. 
After his year of travel, it was quite clear that I should 
be freed from much of this year's overwork, for no one 
could doubt, by this time, that he was quite ready for as 
many of his old patients as wished his services. His bi- 
weekly letters to the Sentinel (real little gems of ob- 
servation and humour) had established this to every one's 
satisfaction, and a subscription was on foot to publish 
them, as a surprise and souvenir for him. Yes, Warwick 
was proud of the old Doctor, and had forgotten its doubts 
by spring. 

But with all this, the fact remained that Hugh Cald- 
well, M. D., well fed, well dressed, well housed, and well 
paid, was not happy. Dr. Hunter, who had amused us 
all by proposing to Chrissy and apologising to us for it, 
on the ground that he simply had to get it over, sug- 
gested that our cook was too good. It's true that I 
thought of Chrissy's little red account book and the necks 
of mutton, and sighed. The Doctor caught it from my 
letters and worried about my overworking. I wrote 
him a bullying letter, and sighed again. Rob said I didn't 
"get out" enough. I raised my eyebrows, looked at my 
growing visit book, and sighed again. 

Indeed, the only thing that kept that year of the Doc- 
tor's absence from being one of the dullest of my exist- 
ence was my ceaseless if secret work at trying to reduce 
to form, literary or scientific, or both, my ideas of what 
we both believed to be the truth about his accident. I 
was very shy about letting him discuss it, but just be- 
fore he left, I realised that he had given far more thought 



WE TAKE OUR EASE 

to it than I had dreamed of. He laid before me a signed 
and witnessed statement, got with some difficulty from 
Nana, who could hardly bear to discuss the matter, as to 
all that old Beulah had said before her death. He had 
also got from Hunter, who had taken a few notes at the 
time of the accident, a pretty full account of his own 
ravings and delusions in the hospital. Now, he urged me 
to state for him my curious sensations at the time of my 
discovery by the roadside that he actually lived, and had 
not been a victim to the deadly electric fluid. With the 
skill of a professional cross-examiner he forced me to ad- 
mit that I had experienced unpleasant and inexplicable 
doubts, at the time when his eyes had first met mine, and 
under this examination, all my old, halting, incredulous 
fancies surged over me again, and I was as keen as he. 
We corresponded more fully about it as the months went 
by and I perceived that the grim science-shaking thing 
we both glimpsed, feared and dared not dismiss as ab- 
surd, did not unsettle or distress him. He took all such 
things very simply and steadily. 

When, for instance, we told him of Gary's death, as 
we soon had to, we, I believe, were more moved than he. 

"Ah, well, poor lad! It had to come, of course. I 
wonder we kept him so long, Hugh. You made a happy 
home for him, my boy you and Chrissy." 

That was all he said. And he had taken Bert's loss 
the bitterest of all with a manly fortitude that seemed 
almost stoical. 

So that this, the most startling conception, surely, that 
humanity has ever been urged to face and accept, he 
faced and accepted as if he had been an onlooker merely 
not the subject of an obsession we hardly knew how 
to put into black and white. 

How did that tramp know Beulah? He had long since 

319 



THE INHERITANCE 

been identified, by my description, as a dangerous, violent 
fellow from Pennsylvania, new to our part of the world. 

Why should he have taken that (apparently) worth- 
less coin and left the valuable gold watch? It had cost 
no little time and strength to detach it. Only the Doc- 
tor and his family knew its value. 

Why should Beulah have insisted that he was the Doc- 
tor, and so she was not afraid of him? 

She was not the clearest-witted person alive, by any 
means, but she was never demented. 

And whose were those ravings in the hospital? Were 
they the words of a clean-minded, clean-tongued gen- 
tleman or did they come from the drink-fumed soul 
of another? Whose? 

Well, I press you no further. Dismiss it from your 
well-balanced mind, most gentle reader, and forget that 
these scattered memories were, as a matter of fact, begun 
on my part, only as a frame for that experience. The pa- 
pers we prepared together, later, for scientific publi- 
cation (he had even thought of the medical journals!) 
were altogether too technical for my purposes : I was bit- 
ten, you see, by the literary idea, and, anyway, when we 
tried to hint it, long afterward, to the men who would 
have supervised its publication, I need only remember the 
way in which it was received to realise that a generation 
suspicious of hoaxing would have made the presentation 
through scientific channels almost impossible. 

There was no way of breaking the ice, you see, of be- 
ginning. Unfortunately for our purposes, a wave of 
occultism, theosophy, imitation Buddhism, table tipping 
and what-not was sweeping over America just then, and 
the men we wanted to reach were too sickened with al- 
leged miracles roses dropping from the ceiling, tea cups 
mysteriously buried under the roots of trees, astral bod- 

320 



WE TAKE OUR EASE 

ies and "materialisations" to listen for a moment to 
what we had to tell, a story that would swamp all 
this petty prestidigitation completely! Why, my own 
first attempts to interest Dr. M 1 and later, Mr. W m 
J s, then busily engaged in teaching the new science, 
psychology, to walk alone, produced effects that, so far 
from helping me, actually threatened my practise and 
frightened me as effectually as only the fright that emp- 
ties the stomach and bares the back can frighten the 
bread winner. If by any chance either of these gentle- 
men should fall upon these memoirs (and sometimes I 
fear that they will never see print, so rambling and un- 
finished they seem, in a generation when every shop girl, 
it would appear, is a successful novelist and every news- 
paper reporter a finished playwright) will they remem- 
ber the young suburban doctor for Warwick began to 
call itself a suburb in the late 8o's whom they dismissed 
contemptuously to Mr. St d and his spooks the very 
last place the young suburban doctor wanted to go to? 
"Psychical Research," as anything unlikely began to be 
called, about then, with its rappings and tappings and 
slappings, as the Doctor called them, was no cause for a 
physician and his growing practice to identify himself 
with, and I never saw the day when, to be perfectly 
frank, I could have afforded it. 

And as for him how could he have endured the least 
breath of suspicion of oddity or unsoundness when he 
had built up, all his lifetime, such a reputation for con- 
servative, sound methods ? No, it couldn't be done. Even 
for the great sweepstakes, scientific fame itself, he 
couldn't run the risk. And I wonder sometimes as I walk 
the streets of some great city, wonder, as I have walked 
thus with him, into how many of the apparently normal 
lives surging by us along the pavement, some great, im- 

321 



THE INHERITANCE 

possible shock may not have come, something called by 
us supernatural (though we are increasingly chary of the 
word, nowadays), something that would revolutionise 
the entire monarchy of science but for its untoward effect 
on this or that tiny individual, his reputation, his daily 
living, his life's love and so dies with him and is only 
guessed at by a few. We are cunningly entrenched in 
our little camp of use-and-wont, and perhaps Nature has 
purposely run up her earthworks so high just in order 
that we may not see on how slight a neck of land we 
are balanced and how awful and shadowy stretch the gi- 
gantic hosts of the mysterious forces all about. 



CHAPTER XXV 

In Which My Eyes Are Opened 

WE had a beautiful, late summer that year in 
Warwick, and the most gorgeous autumn 
foliage I ever saw there. October seemed 
September, and November never touched the frost line 
seriously. On the day our travellers reached New York 
I couldn't be of the welcoming party, for the hospital was 
crowded and poor Nana nearly beside herself with work 
and worry. The nurses had told me lately of symptoms 
connected with what she called her "little attacks" that 
looked ominous to me, and I was only waiting for the 
Doctor's return to use our combined forces and compel 
her to a long-needed holiday. 

So I didn't meet them till the first excitements were 
over, and he was sitting in the office again, solid and 
ruddy, with a light, unaccustomed coat of tan over all, 
and a jolly ring in his voice that took me back to my boy- 
ish yea~s : 

"My George, Hughie, but it's good to see you!" he 
called out to me, and no father and son ever grasped 
heartier hands than we. 

What an evening we had! The Fletchers held Rob 
and Aunt Addie speechless with plans and reminiscences, 
and Chrissy and I, she on her hassock by his knee, one 
hand in his, went back to the old times, our years fallen 
off at the sight of his new-old vigour. My spirits eased 
and lightened suddenly and I realised that my long three 

323 



THE INHERITANCE 

years' pull of double work and worry was over. Never, 
curiously enough, had I felt the need of his age and ex- 
perience so much as in those years when I myself was 
advancing so rapidly in both! Never had I understood 
so well why the community loves and needs its "old 
doctor." And now that he was back, and I might venture 
on that little vacation every one was prescribing for me, 
somehow, I didn't feel the need of it ! Here we were, we 
three, together again wasn't that enough? 

In the morning he and I went over the hospital to- 
gether, and as we discussed a curious medico-legal com- 
plication of the sort that occasionally puzzles both pro- 
fessions and he said, "I must speak to Rob about that 
this evening : he'll help us out," Nana suddenly appeared 
again beside us; she had had her private greetings, be 
sure. 

"Mr. Rob just walked by, Doctor," she said quickly, 
"with Miss Chrissy. I saw them from the sun parlour." 

"With Miss Chrissy, eh?" he repeated slowly; "well, 
well ! What do you think about all this, Nana ? Accord- 
ing to what I hear, there seems to be a general idea . . ." 

"Yes, sir, there's a good many thinks it's likely, Doc- 
tor," she replied quietly. 

"Thinks what's likely?" I said roughly, catching and 
holding her unwilling glance ; "what's likely, for heaven's 
sake?" 

"Mr. Rob and Miss Chrissy, Master Hugh," she an- 
swered simply, and the strange look in her steady eyes 
gave me a curious, sad thrill, through all my stifling, 
furious rage. "Hadn't you heard any talk of it, then?" 

For a moment the disgust and shock of it gave me 
sensations of actual nausea. 

"What damned nonsense!" I cried shortly, and turned 
on my heel and left them standing there. 

324 



MY EYES ARE OPENED 

With precisely the sensation of one in a dream I found 
that I was out of the building, somehow, and striding 
angrily through the grounds, then out into the fields into 
which the cultivated park melted. How I knew which 
way they went, I can't to this day tell, for all that district 
was full of tempting walks (lovers' lanes faugh!) and 
there was absolutely no clew. Nevertheless I had no 
shadow of doubt that I was on the direct track and, in- 
deed, I must have followed precisely in their footsteps. 
No insulted brother, no wronged and passionate father 
ever boiled with a more elemental rage than I the thing 
was disgusting, incredible! 

"A good many thinks it's likely," forsooth ! The more 
fools we, to take him in amongst us ! 

Like a hunting dog I tracked them and I ran them 
to earth though not in time, alas ! There are some situ- 
ations that a deaf mute of a savage, a vestal virgin grown 
from infancy in a guarded tower, couldn't fail to grasp, 
and this was one of them. Chrissy sat on a low boulder 
at the edge of a trodden path, her scarlet, hooded golf 
cape bright in the sun, her leaf-brown skirt melting into 
the leaves at her feet. Her strong, white hands were 
clasped about her raised knees, her face drooped toward 
Rob's. He crouched, half length, beside her, cap off 
(bald, at thirty-six!) and as I checked and stood at gaze, 
I saw his arm slip about her knees, over those firm hands. 
I could have shot him as he sprawled there. 

In full sight, like a couple of Warwick's "Dublinites," 
from the Tracks ! A nice way to treat a girl ! Had she 
no pride, herself, no reserve ? He was begging, the snob, 
he was begging, every line of his body besought her, as 
he sprawled there, and I could no more interrupt than 
one can interrupt a priest administering the sacrament 
or a mother nursing her child. Nature guards those 

325 



THE INHERITANCE 

moments for her own purposes, and even on the stage, the 
lovers must have their kiss before the swords rush on 
from the wings. Nor could I wrench away my eyes, 
even, when Rob put his arm around her bending neck 
and took his kiss, though I shook, literally, with rage. 
Then she said a few words, and he got up lightly, took 
the hand she held out as calmly as if he had never come 
any nearer (O women! even the most dignified, even 
the most comradely, how sly, how prepared you are I) 
put on his cap again, took it off gallantly and walked rap- 
idly away from her toward the Asylum Road. 

She sat there, in absolute quiet, and I waited till he 
should be absolutely gone, then rounded the rock that 
had sheltered me and strode straight at her. Honestly, 
in that moment, I detested her ! For ten years I had not 
been so angry. 

"So this was it, all along!" I cried furiously, before 
I had reached her. 

"Good morning, Hugh," she said quietly. One would 
have supposed we had met by appointment. 

"Oh, nonsense !" I said, "do you suppose I don't know ? 
I tell you I was here, all the time !" 

"So I thought," she answered. 

"You thought ! you thought !" I repeated, irritated in- 
creasingly by her calm, "and you thought I saw him kiss 
you, too, I suppose?" 

She gave me the most curious look I have ever seen in 
a woman's eyes. 

"I thought you wouldn't mind," she said. Just that. 

The extraordinary complication of this simple sentence 
gave the last shove to my sliding self-control. 

"Mind!" I cried, "mind! For God's sake!" 

Then I lowered my voice, as women do before they 
strike. 

326 



MY EYES ARE OPENED 

"A charming way to celebrate the anniversary of one's 
wife's death," I said harshly, "quite worthy of Rob at 
his best !" 

Yet she did not wince. Her control was unnatural. 

"Rob's life was not happy, Hugh," she said. 

"Indeed," I sneered, "but you hope that with his first 
wife's income his second may make him happier, eh? 
Is that the idea ?" 

She shook her head vaguely. 

"You know, I never thought money was " 

"Oh, bosh!" I interrupted, beside myself with that 
horrible, oppressive rage that literally stifled me, "bosh, 
Chrissy ! So he's to eat his cake and have it, too ! Well, 
he always was clever I'll say that for him!" 

"You were all clever," she said softly, looking beyond 
me over the quiet, sun-steeped hills. 

"By George, you ought to know !" I burst out suddenly, 
"you've tried 'em all except Hux, that is. How did Hux 
manage to escape, I wonder ?" 

This was not pretty conversation, gentlest of readers, 
and I don't offer it as a Compendium for Young Gentle- 
men in Difficult Situations. But something was bruised 
and shocked in me, down below the layer of chivalry, 
down below the conventional plane of heroes in ladies' 
novels, down below my own heart. Something was bleed- 
ing in the depths of me, depths that had never been cut 
before, and I tore at the wound myself and hit out 
blindly. 

"How did Hux escape?" I repeated, in an ugly voice. 

The amazing, the incredible girl actually smiled! 

"Poor old Hux !" she said gently, "he proposed to me 
when I was sixteen!" 

This was too much. I laughed violently. 

"Excuse me," I began satirically, after the disagreeable 
22 



THE INHERITANCE 

noise I made stopped abruptly, "but it was too absurd! 
All the Caldwells! And poor Aunt Addie complaining 
that you don't understand 'those sort of things!' And 
all the while ... all the Caldwells!" 

"All but one," she corrected gravely. 

"What? You mean that Bert never asked you, after 
all?" 

"Oh, yes," she said, very low, "Bert did really I 
think." 

"Then, what do you mean 'all but one' ?" 

She rose suddenly and stood before me, taller than I, 
for she was on the slope. 

"You never did, Hugh," she said, and stood still. 

"What?" I cried, staring at her as one stares at a 
ghost, "what?" 

"You never did," she said again, and looked full into 
my eyes. 

And then, as I stared at her in a sort of terror, that 
deep wound below my heart burst, and flooded me from 
brain to heels, and the stroke that fell upon Saul of Tar- 
sus was as summer lightning to the glare that opened 
my blind eyes on that autumn hill. 

So that was it! That stifling, grinding ache was not 
rage it was jealousy! I wanted to shoot Rob because 
I was jealous of him not because he was in love with 
Chrissy. Why, we were all in love with her ! We always 
had been ! With Chrissy ! 

And suddenly it was as if a veil unrolled between us, 
up and up, like the curtain of a theatre, and I saw her 
as she really was :' no comrade, no housemate, no sister, 
but a beautiful, dark woman, a proud young Juno in a 
crimson wrap, with deep, wine-brown eyes, where mine 
dipped and plunged and sank and never saw with the 
old vision again ! 

328 



MY EYES ARE OPENED 

This was Chrissy this wonderful, flushed thing with 
the bust and shoulders of an antique Roman, the brave 
forehead of a friendly boy! This was Chrissy, with 
hands made for other things than mending, and lips 
curved for vastly different kisses from those she gave 
her nieces ! This had always been Chrissy with a warm, 
red heartful of love trembling and spilling at the brim, 
and I had drunk from it for years, yes, had lived on 
it for years, and never known what I drank nor that it 
made my own life's blood ! 

I felt a curious weakness in the calves of my legs and 
had the absurd sensation that I should soon have to sit 
down, but I scorned such a concession and fought my- 
self steady, while we faced each other. Then I found my 
arms outstretched and would have said her name, but 
that no sound came out of my throat, after all. I could 
not have moved to her, literally, and moved straight, but 
they have more control than we, under this spell, and she 
obeyed my eyes and walked, at first with tiny, halting 
steps, then in a wonderful, rushing stride into my arms. 

"Really, Chrissy ?" I whispered to her. 

"Oh, yes ; oh, yes !" she whispered back, and lifted her 
face up to me. (I don't recall being offended with her 
lack of reserve.) 

The whole afternoon we stayed there, and the day 
waited for us and the year the last of those wonderful 
Indian summer days. Not a leaf, brown, yellow or scar- 
let, stirred, for there was no more wind than in August, 
and the soft, melting haze hung over the hills that make 
a cup of Warwick Valley, and turned everything the 
color of bloomy grapes. The air smelt of warm, wet 
leafage pressed into the fragrant earth, a winey, satis- 
fying odour the best, except for apple orchards in Au- 
gust, I think, that the year has to offer. The blue of the 

329 



THE INHERITANCE 

sky was that unspeakable, fleckless blue that Italy spells 
for the foggy British (we wonder, here, why it doesn't 
impress us more!), and the low rock we sat on was sun- 
baked through and through. No human creature passed 
across our horizon we might have been the first man 
and woman in the waiting world. 

But what we said I cannot tell you. Perhaps you think 
there was nothing to say? "You knew her so well!" I 
can hear you carping at our tame Darby-and- Joan-ness. 
But I didn't! Blind fool, I didn't! It is true, I had 
gathered in the twenty-six years of our acquaintance a 
few superficial trifles of information about my wife which 
you, when you fell in love at the opera that night, or at 
the Jones's dinner party, had never had the opportunity 
of acquiring in regard to the lady in whose hands you 
placed your happiness and your bank-book. I knew, it 
is true, that she was honest as the day, absolutely vigor- 
ous and healthy, as brave as a lion. I knew that she was 
an excellent housekeeper, a strict accountant, a tactful, 
devoted daughter to the only parent who ever invited her 
to assume the relationship, a trusty, considerate sister, 
with little children, adoring and adored. I knew that 
she was cheerful in poverty, friendly in comparative 
wealth, good humoured and active at home and abroad. 
I knew that she never gossiped nor sulked nor nagged 
and I had seen her during years when there were plenty 
of chances for these tendencies to exploit themselves. I 
knew of all these gifts, I admit : how many of them have 
you discovered, since, in your good lady? 

Well, well, we won't press the matter. Perhaps Mrs. 
Blank was a beauty or a genius. In my professional 
capacity I have attended ladies of each class, and I 
can only say I am grateful that Chrissy belonged to 
neither. 

330 



MY EYES ARE OPENED 

Once that afternoon I recalled another person than our- 
selves. 

-Did Rob go " 

"He's gone back to New York," she said. 

"Poor Rob I'm afraid he's not had a very happy life, 
after all," I added thoughtfully, and she answered : 

"No, I'm afraid so, too." 

Some happy instinct sent us back before the sun fell 
too low, and we can never, now, remember that day as 
anything but leaf-scented and wine-coloured. 

We passed by the hospital, but stopped, for Nana, 
wrapped in one of the roof-patients' blanket-coats, sat 
waiting on the block under the porte-cochere. She rose 
and hastened toward us, then dropped the coat hastily 
and caught me in her arms. 

"Is it all right, lambie is it all right?" she cried, and 
my voice was husky as I kissed her kind, wet cheek. I 
had never seen her so moved since I was a child. She 
and Chrissy looked long at each other, and I knew, then, 
that in that look my old nurse resigned her charge for 
the first time in my life ! It touched me strangely, that 
look of theirs, and I realized sharply how every man of 
us passes inevitably from one woman's hands to an- 
other's till that day when the last woman makes us ready 
for our last bed. Truly, a strange, blind sex: we are 
given over to them as so much putty and they ask us 
for more power ! 



CHAPTER XXVI 
In Which We Go Honey-mooning 

AS is usual, in these cases, our family utterly sur- 
prised us by their attitudes. The Doctor, whom 
I suspected of grasping the whole situation, was 
as genuinely surprised and shocked as if I had wanted 
to marry Aunt Addie, and Aunt Addie, herself, far from 
dissolving into incoherent tears on my shoulder, merely 
sniffed and said with some vexation, "Hmh ! And high 
time, / should say !" 

From then on, the events reeled by us ; we could hardly 
catch up with our own wedding, so fast it came upon us. 
If I had not seen with my own eyes the great white "soli- 
taire" on Chrissy's hand, I should have said that we were 
never engaged only married. I remember that we care- 
fully planned the details of a quiet ceremony in the draw- 
ing-room (in a top-of-a-biscuit-coloured travelling dress) 
only to find ourselves in a glistening train made out of 
an Indian-brocaded shawl, and a diamond spray clasping 
orange blossoms, walking up the new St. Matthews' aisle 
among the Christmas pine and holly, a vested choir and 
four small, snowy bride-maidens before, and all Warwick 
behind us. 

I recall stumbling through a congestion of presents, 
presents, and more presents ; presents on the veranda, in 
the hall, under the piano Mississippis and avalanches of 
presents, boxed and crated and tissue-papered and wash- 
leathered. 

I recall Black Molly, with white satin streamers at her 

332 



WE GO HONEY-MOONING 

ears, and Thomas with a white rosette, and Chrissy's 
voice saying temperately, "Never mind, Hugh, it pleases 
them, dear!" 

I recall the sailing-master of Larson's yacht, smiling 
and laying his finger to his gold-braided cap. I recall 
the worst attack of mal-de-mer in my experience and my 
consequent horror and humiliation. I recall hours of dull 
and dreamy bliss after that inferno, and then I am driv- 
ing in a rattletrap victoria, with Chrissy, over a snow- 
white road with groups of feathery palms here and there, 
shining, thick-leaved foliage, unexpected rose-coloured 
blooms, and a great, languorous, sapphire ocean crawling 
up over a level, creamy beach. There is a curious, ver- 
dant smell in the air, a happy tang of salt, a sense of lazy, 
luxurious hours with no duties. It is the island where I 
was born. 

But not till after many of these lazy hours on the 
creamy beaches, where the dull pound of the surf covers 
from the inquisitive gulls our foolish, hungry happiness ; 
not till after many secret sails alone on the surface of the 
crystal-clear blue, where the coral sways below, and the 
jewelled, flower-coloured fishes flash after each other like 
lovers' kisses; not till after many hours of marvelling 
silence under that great white moon of honey, did I take 
her with me on the not-all-unhappy hunt for the poor 
little grave I had told her of. And even when we found 
it, after some difficulty, and stood in the quaint, sleepy 
little churchyard among the tended graves, and gazed at 
the plain name on the stone even then, I was too full of 
my great, new discovery, my wonderful, new, yielding 
Chrissy, to feel very much or very long for the fate of 
the poor woman who lay there. "E. Poise!" To me she 
was only a name; had I been much more to her, poor 
thing ? 

333 



THE INHERITANCE 

"It was Nana who did for you, Hugh !" Chrissy whis- 
pered, and I nodded soberly. Nothing in me cried out to 
the poor little dairy-maid that lay there, and as I stood, 
uncovered, by her ivied grave, my thoughts went back to 
the silent, faithful woman who had taken from her weak 
embrace the unwanted child that could only have stained 
her ignorant little life had that life been longer. Ah, 
well, it was better so. 

Against my sordid little story, Chrissy's roots into Ber- 
muda soil blossomed with an unlooked-for brilliance. No- 
body but Nana and the Doctor knew what the picturesque 
island meant to me, but when Chrissy's parentage became 
known, the daughter of the beautiful Miss Le Febvre 
came into a quaint and charming heritage of reminiscence 
and pretty history. In place of our confused and some- 
what shamefaced memories of that curious, baffling, silent 
woman, surrounded by her books and inseparable from 
her bed, there rose gradually a clear picture of the dark, 
vivid creature that danced the sun up on the old battle- 
ships, flitted from bay to bay of the blue waters in her 
rigged canoe, and smiled victorious at regimental din- 
ners the toast of the town ! 

A water-colour sketch of her, in a dim, panelled draw- 
ing-room where long-dead bishops and blistered family 
portraits drowsed on the walls, showed her full, drooping 
mouth, her great, haunting eyes under the rolls of 
shadowy hair ; an old slave, who had been used to groom 
her pony, grew garrulous over "Miss Genie's li'l, wee 
feet," and we saw the Colonel drinking champagne from 
her incredible satin slipper ; her very pew at church, with 
a gardenia carved into it by some impious subaltern hand, 
brought a lump to the throat. 

"As witty as Miss Le Febvre," had passed into many 
a now-yellowed diary before the audacious creature left 

334 



WE GO HONEY-MOONING 

for good and all the balcony hung with bougainvillea, and 
the great carved secretaire we bought for a song from 
a faded little landlady who remembered her well. 

"The other young ladies said it was chock-a-block with 
love letters, my dear," gossiped this twittering dame, "and 
I assure you, we were all as glad as glad when 'Genie 
left Bermuda! The officers noticed us then! But the 
Island's changed, now terribly changed. . . ." 

And when I, invited on my wife's account to a great 
general's luncheon party, dined and wined belovr a 
famous battleship's deck because my wife's mother had 
jilted the Admiral; when I, who had looked loftily down 
upon little Chrissy Vereker and her eccentric family from 
the heights of Yale College and an assured income, 
thought on those things, I blushed ! 

But Chrissy, my honest, sturdy Chrissy, though she 
listened eagerly to the stories of this lovely, wilful mother 
and laughed, a little slyly, at the old gossips' confessions, 
turned to me, alone at night, and bent her straight 
troubled brows. 

"It seems dreadful, Hugh, but I can't feel to her as I 
should think I would ! You see, I never knew her, really. 
It was Nana that that did for me, Hugh, just Nana! 
Always, all the time. You know, don't you ?" 

"Yes, I know," I said soberly, and in a flash I saw that 
patient, loving face. Ah, how the eyes searched mine ! 
What a strange look in them, that day when 
Chrissy and I had come home together, together for- 
ever! and she had sat waiting for us in the roof- 
patient's cloak! 

And how curious, how inexplicable, that we three, she 
and Chrissy and I, should be so rooted in that little bit 
of sand and rock in the midst of the ocean ! Out of all 
the worlds in the universe, I and my mother, Chrissy and 

335 



THE INHERITANCE 

her mother, to be linked together, there ! Surely, "it was 
written," as the East says. 

Of course, if you have not yourself experienced the 
fascination of such a transformed creature as the woman 
I loved and found in Chrissy (and there is not one chance 
in a million that you have) you will not be able to ap- 
preciate without an enormous effort of the imagination 
the rare and penetrating happiness of those sunny days. 
She seemed to shift and change, and come and go, so that 
I must test my bliss every hour and always find it real ! 
When she came down to our catboat with her packed 
basket (and I knew how well it would be packed, mind 
you!) taut and trim in white duck, tanned and sparkling 
under her wide Panama brim with the scarlet scarf, when 
she actually set her shoulder against the stern with me, 
I would forget for a moment. This was only Chrissy, 
good comrade for a picnic, peerless at luncheon baskets, 
practical rememberer of matches and extra jackets. 
Then, all of a sudden, it would surge over me. 

"No, you fool, it's not it's Chrissy! This stately, 
firm-muscled, proud-shouldered woman is yours yours ! 
Those glorious, brown eyes (make them meet your own !) 
are yours, and you may kiss them silent! Those firm, 
full lips (call them to you!) are for you all for you! 
She loves you utterly and she will always love you and 
you love her more than all the world together!" 

If the fairy prince began the dance with Cinderella and 
ended it with a sparkling, glowing princess in his arms 
does that open your eyes at all, gentle reader? 

I had never danced with Chrissy until then. There 
were three battleships (English, of course) in harbour 
that winter, and two regiments quartered on the island, 
and a gayer little island never floated on the ocean ! Two 
great bands flanked the polished, springy floor, and dash- 

336 



WE GO HONEY-MOONING 

ing redcoats spun and glided over it, and more than one 
redcoat hovered tentatively near "that brunette with 
stunning shoulders from the States a bride, worse 
luck !" But Chrissy didn't dance with the redcoats : she 
danced only with me we had just met, you see ! 

"Did you always love me, Chrissy always ?" 

(Do you know the waltz called "River of Years," gen- 
tle reader ? Did you ever hold in your arms to its music 
the woman you had loved all her life and known but 
six weeks?) 

"I think so, Hugh." 

"And did you always know I loved you always ?" 

She smiles the old, wise, Chrissy smile, then suddenly 
blushes hot and flashes her eyes up at me this strange, 
new bride, whose lips I have hardly learned. 

"I think so, Hugh!" 

Wonderful woman ! 



CHAPTER XXVII 

In Which I Come Into My Inheritance 

AND to think that it all happened long ago !" 
I seize her hand (that firm, warm hand, with 
all her heart in its faithful grasp) and kiss each 
of its five shapely fingers. 

You foolish Chrissy! Long ago? As if there were 
any such period, while we are alive and love each other ! 
You talk like a girl of twenty. When you know and I 
know and every sensible man and woman knows that 
Life, like that great Interpreter of life, has performed the 
miracle of saving the best wine till the last. It is only we 
who are past the growing pains can relish the great brew, 
and understand that the grapes must be well trodden and 
bruised before the flavour comes out. 

And what a flavour it is ! And how each new bud on 
the clustering vine enriches and strengthens the mellow- 
ing vintage! When we have learned (or think we have 
learned) every look of the women we love, when we have 
decided that there can be no possible bend of the neck 
more gracious and beautiful than that with which they 
turn their faces up to us lo, then comes the day when 
that look curves down, down into the depths of their 
sheltering arms, and we see that final perfect picture for 
which the great Artist has prepared his canvas from the 
beginning ! 

And then, so irrational are we, so uncomprehending of 
all that sorrow has meant and done for us, that we vow 

338 



I COME INTO MY INHERITANCE 

to stretch our grateful, passionate hearts into a wall 
about that mother and her child, and save them from 
life's only certain heritage : human tears. For who ever 
lived that did not weep? 

Not that tears will fill too great a place in the child- 
hood's memories of any of our five, thank God ! The old 
red house has been all warmth and love and brightness 
for them; three generations of friendly, family life, 
twined together through the years, have taught 
them what seems to me the imperative lesson for this 
young country that youth is not all; that though we 
worship, and rightly, round the cradle, the core of the 
house, that house is not merely a shelter for its precious 
cradle, but a roof-tree for the older growths that laid 
its rafters out of their own wood, that fed its roots out 
of their own blood that need its shelter sorely, now 
that the north winds threaten their slow-running sap of 
life. 

And I think there must be something strongly and 
magically preservative about this wine of family love and 
service, this reverent faithfulness to old tales, old sports, 
old customs of the clan; for who else in Warwick can 
compete with old Miss Caldwell and the old Doctor? 
When shaky seventy-year-olds cause themselves to be 
hurried to Florida, California or where not, at the first 
touch of the winter winds, they have but to sprinkle a 
few ashes over the glare-ice of their entrance-steps and 
the old Doctor will nimbly mount those steps and con- 
dole with them on the lumbago or the bronchitis that 
sends them from "the healthiest town in New England, 
madam!" And Aunt Addie, who has completely out- 
grown the youthful maladies of her sometimes-com- 
plaining sixties, has never missed a meeting of the Ladies' 
Aid in fifteen years, and actually responded to a toast, 

339 



THE INHERITANCE' 

last year, at the big dinner of the Bert Caldwell Club on 
their founder's day anniversary at the great farm-and- 
trades school at Bragg's Hill! Even Khitmutgar holds, 
so far as I know, the record for pony longevity, for all 
the children but little Emmie have at least perched upon 
his ancient back, for photographic purposes, before he 
joined Black Molly, Odin (my first Great Dane) and the 
lengthening list of old friends in their orchard burial 
plot. 

Darling Emmie! The only shadow of a quarrel that 
has ever risen between her mother and me concerns itself 
with the propriety of her being told, in the future, why 
she bears the name we gave her eight years ago. Only 
three people, now living, know why : Chrissy, the Doctor 
and I. Suppose that, once for all, I write it here, and 
leave it sealed in my great, carved Bermuda secretaire, so 
that if Chrissy ever changes her mind and places the 
truth above Nana's dying wish, little dark-eyed Emmie, 
my only picture of her mother among our blond, cleft- 
chinned troup, may know, and then forget if she will, or 
can. 

But I like to think that no blood of mine, still less of 
my lion-hearted Chrissy, could ever forget that story of 
a love so great, so granite-like, so infinite. 

You may be sure that only Nana and the Doctor shared 
those five vigils that brought our five lusty young citizens 
to the light, for the white-capped auxiliary that prudence 
recommended in view of Nana's occasional "attacks" 
(undoubted cardiac rheumatism, unfortunately, but 
greatly modified for the better on her leaving the hos- 
pital for good), this eager helper, I say, passed most of 
the time in Aunt Addie's room, to her own dignified dis- 
pleasure. 

But with our last daughter, prudence was justified, 

340 



I COME INTO MY INHERITANCE 

finally, for hardly had Nana given the little creature into 
her mother's arms, when the terrible old pangs caught 
her, and the auxiliary force was hard pressed indeed. 
After days of doubt, she rallied, but I kept her in her 
bed, where she fretted nervously, and aged suddenly, 
years, it seemed, before our eyes. Her hair, hardly iron 
grey, whitened entirely, and the whole broad, hale body 
seemed to shrink and refine as she lay there. 

Before I would allow her from her room, Chrissy was 
visiting her there, and the baby, "the last that ever I'll 
help you through, I doubt, Miss Chrissy," lay staring at 
nothing, on the bed between them. 

It was Chrissy, of course, who thought of the plan, and 
I, by her request, who told Nana, one night when I was 
watching by her bed the Doctor's old bed, abandoned 
when he moved downstairs. 

"Nana," I said gently, to rouse her from the vacancy 
I hated to see creep over her lined face, though I knew it 
meant physical peace, at least, "Nana, you haven't asked 
about the baby's name." 

She pulled herself back from the tide that crept, always 
ready, to float her out of consciousness, and smiled 
faintly. 

"No. What's it to be, then, doctor?" 

"Chrissy thinks," I said, "and I think, too, that taking 
it all in all, there is no woman's name that can mean more 
to us that the name of the woman who did more for us 
yes, both of us ! than any other woman in the world. 
We've been looking back, Nana, and we can't go so far 
back, either of us, that we don't find you behind us do 
you realize that, dear old nurse ?" 

She smiled, a beautiful, wavering smile. "Ye think so, 
then, do ye, Iambic ?" she murmured. 

341 



THE INHERITANCE 

"Why, Nana, you helped Chrissy into the world you 
remember ?" 

"Ay, I remember," she answered. 

"And when I was born you were there, I think?" I 
said, cautiously, for I knew she would not wish to dwell 
on that topic the silence of her life. 

But she did not frown. 

"Ay, I was there," she said simply. 

"And all my life why, Nana, how you worked for 
me when I was small ! You don't like me to speak of it, 
I know, but you can't think I forget !" 

"No, lambie, no; I know you don't forget," she re- 
peated, and moved her hand over weakly toward mine. 

"Why, Nana, I never should have known Chrissy, ex- 
cept for you ! Do you realize ?" 

"I doubt ye never would, and that's the truth," she an- 
swered, and her old, keen smile grew around her mouth. 

"So Chrissy and I think it will please 'you to know 
that we want to call the baby after you, Nana dear we 
want to call her Esther." 

She lay in perfect silence, so long that I doubted if 
she had heard or understood. I feared that the old 
reminiscences had been too much and that she was back 
in the old times brushing and dressing me, perhaps, or 
tying Chrissy's pinafores. 

"Did you hear, Nana?" 

"Yes, lambie, I heard. But I'm thinking. Just wait 
a bit." 

I waited, reassured, and the nursery fire whistled softly 
behind the old black guard and threw shadows on the 
Kate Greenaway pictures beside the mantel, marked with 
the growing heights of three tall boys, and a slender, 
graceful girl. 

She drew a deep breath. 

342 



I COME INTO MY INHERITANCE 

"You must call her Emma, Hughie," she said at last. 

I took her hand firmly. 

"No, dear, no," I said, "I have thought it all out I 
thought of it when I stood beside her grave in Bermuda 
she's not to me what you are, Nana, and never could 
be. What can she be but a poor little shadow, when it's 
all said and done ? All of that was buried when I began 
again, Hugh Caldwell, and I should feel like a hypocrite 
to go back, now. No, dear, Chrissy agrees with me, and 
you know how you trust her judgment! We want to 
name the baby after you." 

"Then you must name her Emma, Hugh," she said. 

I stared at her calm face. 

"Dear Nana, think ! You're confused with all the pain 
you've had. Emma False is buried in the little church- 
yard in Old Paget, isn't it? You are Esther, Emma's 
aunt, that took me and brought me up, after she died. 
Don't you remember?" 

"Ay, Iambic, I remember fast enough. I took you and 
brought you up and did my best by you, and why 
wouldn't I ? As Aunt Esther meant to do, no doubt. But 
'tis her that's laid in Paget graveyard, dearie, and the 
stone says '. Palse,' for I was always one that lies stuck 
in my throat, even if they did no harm." 

"Nana! What do you mean? Surely, not that you 
are " 

"I'm Emma Palse, dearie, that spoke out the letter 
that was took down, me not being to last long, as they all 
thought, and you read it at the lawyer's, as the Doctor 
told me, when you came back from your foreign travels." 

"But then but then, you must be do you mean 
Nana, do you mean that you are " 

"Yes. I'm your mother, Hughie," she said quietly. 

Wave after wave of conviction rolled over me: I 

23 343 



THE INHERITANCE 

knew that she spoke the truth. Nothing else could ex- 
plain that lifelong, eager sacrifice, that passionate, ever- 
present devotion. Nothing else could have steered our 
frail little boat over all the troubled, black waters of that 
early life but that bright beacon of her motherhood her 
motherhood that I had never so much as dreamed of ! 

I knew this, realized it and yet I couldn't believe it, 
simply. I couldn't take her by force out of the position 
she had held for me all those years and put her, by any 
logical effort, in another. 

"Nana," I stammered, "you must you must tell me 
I can't understand how is there anybody that " 

"There's not a soul on earth that knows, my precious," 
she broke in eagerly, actually raising herself on her pil- 
lows and looking clearly into my eyes, "not one soul on 
earth. Aunt Esther went home to see about the money, 
and make all her plans to come back to Bermuda and 
take you to the States from there. And she signed all 
the papers, but 'twas in Sir Wilkie's library she did it, and 
the Geddie man never so much as saw her. And then 
when she was back by me again, she saw I was still hang- 
ing, like, betwixt death and life, and she got me and you 
out of those lodgings, for the fever was there. She 
was very bitter with me, poor Aunt Esther, and she took 
one of the black women's cabins, off near the beach, far 
out of Hamilton, to tend me in, and did for me all alone. 
And in the end, 'twas I that got well and she that died, 
for she had the fever, you see 'twas brought from Lon- 
don in the ship she sailed in. There was but a half-fool- 
ish old woman to help me out, but I was quite strong by 
then, and I had no thought of what I did, for it all came 
by accident, like. The doctor gave me a paper to sign, 
and I put down E. False, which was the way I signed 

344 



I COME INTO MY INHERITANCE 

my own name, you see, and Esther E. False for hers, and 
when he read it over to me and signed his own, I saw by 
the way he read it that he thought me to be Esther, and 
that I had put my own name in the line where poor Aunt's 
should be. 

" 'Is that right, Mrs. False ?' says he, and all in a flash 
I saw what I would do, and I nodded my head, for I 
couldn't bear the outright lie. And he sent the papers to 
England and I put up the stone over her, and prayed her 
on my knees by the grave to forgive me, for what hurt 
could it do her ? And I felt freer, like, and more able to 
do for you, Hughie, my lamb. And I did for you, didn't 
I, my dear?" 

"Why, Nana! Nana, is it possible? I can't be- 
lieve ..." 

"Oh, yes, dearie, your mother did for you ! A hundred 
pound a year Sir Wilkie sent, and except for your school- 
ing and the college-ing there wasn't a penny of it touched ! 
All the rest your Nana earned, and earned honest, and 
what he sent was put by for you. So when you went 
back you went back a gentleman, didn't you, dearie?" 

I sat dazed. It seemed like the story of another man, 
told by a stranger. 

"So, you knew when I went ? You knew that I hadn't 
any claim . . . you knew all the time ?" 

"God forgive me, Master Hugh, I knew and yet I 
didn't ! How is a woman to be sure ? Look at the ring 
he gave me, and me believing all the time ! Eh, Iambic, 
it's a hard world for the women ! And I bought me a 
plain gold band, in London, afterwards, like everybody's. 
And I couldn't but think when they saw you, so hand- 
some, and not begging for any money, and the image 
of of him. . . . Ah, well, 'twas in better hands than 
mine! Often's the time I tried to tell ye, but my lips 

345 



THE INHERITANCE 

seemed closed, like 'You'll undo all, he's so proud/ I'd 
tell myself. You're not angry, Hughie?" 

Angry? Oh, the poor meek thing! Angry? And it 
was on those brave shoulders my selfish young feet had 
climbed so long ! 

She fell back and seemed unconscious, though I could 
see no evidence of any pain, so that I knew those cruel 
pangs had not gripped the labouring heart. 

Half unconsciously, as one acts in a dream, and de- 
pending entirely on the mechanical motions of long prac- 
tise, I administered the necessary stimulant, my hand at 
her wrist, my ear over her heart. Chrissy! Chrissy! 
What would Chrissy say? 

Her eyes opened slowly. 

"You see how it was, Master Hugh? I only meant 
for the best, and one thing led to the other, and I hadn't 
the heart to tell you. You see ?" 

"Yes, yes, dear, I see. Oh, Nana, I must call Chrissy ! 
Let me get her, will you ?" 

She put her hand over mine. 

"Not just now, lambie. I've a fancy to wait for that. 
I'm best alone with you for now. You've not said you 
forgive me for telling you. For I couldn't die with a 
lie on my lips, and you won't grudge it, I know." 

"Grudge it ! Oh, Nana, Nana ! To think I never 
guessed, never thought ! All the years I've been so 
careless, so " I bit my lips with shame and con- 
fusion. 

"Nay, nay, Master Hugh, there's no boy finer than you, 
no, nor better thought of ! / know. And if you were a 
little a little high, sometimes, and I'll not deny it ... 
don't groan so, and sigh, my own boy ! Who taught you 
to be ?" 

She was whispering now, and wandering a little, I 

346 



I COME INTO MY INHERITANCE 

thought, for she seemed to be in London and then in 
country lanes. 

"See ! I'm all over dew !" she said once, and laughed 
a little. 

Then she was herself again, and took a solemn promise 
of me that I could not deny her, at such a time, and as- 
sured me that my wife would not be so startled as I might 
think. 

"And a kiss for all the children Nana's children and 
would you say, once, now that you know, Hughie, would 
you say once, so that I can hear ..." 

She seemed to lose her voice suddenly, and begged me 
with her eyes, in vain, at first, while I tried to help her. 
Then, suddenly, it rushed over me, and I lifted her in my 
arms and held her close. 

"Mother!" I called her, "my poor, poor mother! My 
dear mother !" 

Her face melted into a beautiful smile. 

"That's it! That's it!" she muttered, and nestled to 
me. 

"My dear, dear mother !" 

"Ah!" she sighed, and before I could lay her down, 
that great, tired heart had ceased its work for me. 

And yet . . . and yet, who are we that we should use 
a word so blasphemous as "cease"? Am I to dare it, 
who have seen the life she gave me, born out of her love, 
flower through me and the woman-child she tended for 
me, into yet another generation of loving, laughing chil- 
dren ? Can her life-long passion of silence "cease," while 
my life and the lives of all mine, speak aloud for her? 
Hand in hand we stood over her last bed, Chrissy and I, 
and saw together in one clear vision, the tree of our life, 
hers and mine, rooted in that great and steadfast heart, 
spreading through every twig and leaf into unknown 

347 



THE INHERITANCE 

fortunes, sharing with every twig and leaf the eternity 
that is now and here as actually as it will be there and 
then. And we saw (clearer, perhaps, for our very tears) 
that the root of that great tree is as young and immor- 
tal as the tiniest pink bud it put forth but yesterday, and 
that the past is only behind us because we put it there. 

Ah, no, my Chrissy! These scattered memories are 
only to keep us all together, she and you and I for to 
those who love there is no Long Ago ! 



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